LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. Copyright No. 

tW Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MORE POT-POURRI 

FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



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MORE POT-POURRI 



FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



BY 

MRS. C. W. EARLE 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 

1899 



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All rights reserved 



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OCT 17189c 















•ECOND COPY, 



43* 



Copyright, 1899, by 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 










$®ount ipicaisant ©rfnter? 

J. Horace McFarland Company 
Harrisburg, Fa. 



TO THE READERS OF 

♦POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN' 

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 



'Reading good Books of Morality is a little flat 
and dead. Observing our faults in others is some- 
times improper for our case; but the best Receipt 
(best, I say, to tcork and best to take) is the 

Admonition of a Friend.' 

Bacon. 



PAGE 



CONTENTS 



SEPTEMBER 

Reasons for writing another 'Pot-Pourri ' — Advice of friends 

— Criticisms grave and gay — Return home after three 
months abroad — Disappointment with dry garden — King- 
fisher — Sedum spectabile and insects — Gardening — Cook- 
ing 1 

OCTOBER 

Gardening — Echeverias — Ignorance about bulbs — Gossamer 
time and insects — The East Coast — A new rockery — 
Oxalis floribunda as a vegetable — Previous l Pot-Pourris' 

— Cooking receipts, various — Journey to Frankfort in 
1897 — Cronberg — Boecklin's Todten-Insel — Jewish Cem- 
etery — Goethe's house — Staedal Art Institute — German 
treatment of tuberculosis 47 

NOVEMBER 

Present of 'The Botanist' — Echeveria and Euphorbia splen- 
dens — Cowper on greenhouses — Cultivation of greenhouse 
plants — Bookseller at Frankfort — Dr. Wallace on Lilies 

— Receipts — Winter in the country — The sorting of old 
letters 86 

DECEMBER 

Lonely evenings and more papers — Figs from France — 
Hornbeams and Weeping Hornbeams — Wire netting 
round small fruit trees — Damsons — Roman Hyacinths 
and Paper-white Narcissus — Effect of coloured glass on 
plants — Use of corrugated iron — Lord Lyndoch — Culti- 
vation or Mistletoe — A list of plants — Anniversary 
present -giving — Christmas decorations — Acetylene gas 

— The old learning to live alone — Receipts . . 119 

(vii) 



viii CONTENTS 



JANUARY, 18U9 

Difficulties of growing Daphne indica — Journey last year to 
Ireland — Cutting down and re -planting trees — Apples — 
Skimmed milk — Manure heaps — Winter Honeysuckle — 
Botanical Gardens in Dublin — Botticelli's drawings — 
Tissot's Bible — Rippingille's patent stove — Blue flowers 
— ' Snowdrop-time ' — ' The Sun-children's Budget ' — 
Floral notes from 'The Scotsman' — Receipts . . 154 



FEBRUARY 

Mistresses and servants — Difficulty of getting servants — 
Girls instead of boys — Registry Offices — The employ- 
ments that do not take up characters — Early rising — 
Baron Humboldt — Coverings for larders — Blackbeetles — 
Children's nurses — Ignorance of young married women — 
Some natural history books — Forcing blossoming branches 
— Horticultural Show — Letter from San Moritz — Re- 
ceipts . . . . ...... 187 



MARCH 

Confessions about diet — Cures for rheumatism — Effects of 
tea-drinking — Sparing animal life a bad reason for vege- 
tarianism — The Berlin foot-race — Mrs. Crow in Edin- 
burgh — Bagehot on luxury — A word about babies — 
German and English nurseries — Sir Richard Thome 
Thorne on raw milk — The New Education — Difficulty of 
understanding young children — Gardening — Cooking . 220 



APRIL 

Newspapers on cremation — More about Suffolk — Maund on 
flowers that close — Asparagus growing on the seacoast 

— Peacock feathers for firescreens — Dining-room tables 

— Petroleum tubs in gardens — Neglect of natural his- 
tory — Cactuses again — Old mills — Mr. Burbidge on 
sweet-smelling leaves — Florist Auriculas — Seed-sowing 

— Kitchen garden — Poultry 274 



CONTENTS ix 



MAY 

The 'French Sugar Pea' — The 'Westminster Gazette' on 
Tulips — The legend of the Crown Imperial — Article on 
' Sacred Trees and Flowers ' — Peeling of Poppies — Cook- 
ing receipts — Books on Florence — Mr. Gladstone on 
travelling — Journey to Italy — Arrival at Arcetri . . 306 



JUNE 

What I saw from my window at Arcetri — Fireflies — Cy- 
presses — Youthful memories in the 'Cascine' — Deodar in 
Cloister of San Marco — Fete at Santa Margharita — Villas 
— Gardens — Want of colour in Tuscany at midsummer — 
Slight allusion to picture galleries — The cabinet of Cardi- 
nal Leopoldo di Medici — June 24th in Florence — Botani- 
cal Garden — Silence of birds and summer sounds . . 335 



JULY 

A night journey — Dawn in the train — Passing Chamben — 
A water-cure near Geneva — Amiel and his 'Journal In- 
time' — The New Museum at Geneva — M. Correvon's 
garden — An afternoon at Bile — Boecklin again — Cron- 
berg and the ' Palmengarten ' — Planting shrubs to secure 
an especial effect — The cultivation of Alpine Strawberries 
— Receipts 375 



AUGUST 

Horticultural Show in August — The old Chelsea Physic 
Garden — Towns out of season — Flat -hunting in London 
— Overcrowding flats — Marble better than tiles — Cur- 
tains and blinds — A long note on girls and young 
women . . 402 



INDEX 449 



MORE POT-POURRI 



SEPTEMBER 

Reasons fori writing another ' Pot-Pourri ' — Advice of friends — 
Criticisms grave and gay — Return home after three months 
abroad— Disappointment with dry garden— Kingfisher — Sedum 
spectabile and insects— Gardening — Cooking. 

September 1st, 1898. — It is now a year and a half since 
I finished my first book, and the public have been almost 
as appreciative and generous in their praise of it as my 
nieces were. Kind letters of all sorts have poured in, 
and I have been overwhelmed with suggestions about the 
future, and what I should or should not do. Some have 
said — and I admit that these, in all friendliness, are the 
most earnest in their heartfelt appeals — that I should 
rest on my laurels and write no more. They urge that 
a second book always falls flat. If on the same subject 
as the first, it is generally a failure. If on a new sub- 
ject, it is apt to be outside the writer's experience. And 
then they quote several incontestable examples which 
jump to the recollection of everybody. I really agree 
with this view of the case up to the point of not acting 
upon it. Nothing can ever bear being done a second 
time. This is one of the sadnesses of life, and I do not 
for a moment anticipate that No. 2 can please in the 
same kind of way as did No. 1. The method not 
being new, my readers will know pretty well what to 
expect; and this, probably, will immensely sharpen their 



2 MORE POT-POURRI 

critical judgment. Then there were those who said and 
wrote — and need I state that they are the flatterers who 
come most home to the author's heart, as is but natural? 
— 'We have read your book; we like it; we have found 
it useful and helpful, entertaining or suggestive. Cannot 
you give us more? ' To these I answered : ' Give me 
time and I will try. ' The result was that throughout 
the last year I have been making various notes about mj T 
life, things I saw and things I did, exactly as they oc- 
curred. These very likely will prove less interesting 
than former notes, which were more or less connected 
with the life that was behind me. 

One newspaper had it that I must have a very good 
memory. As a matter of fact, I have no memory at all, 
but from my youth I have kept, more or less continu- 
ously, commonplace books — a jumble of all sorts of 
things as I came across them in my very desultory read- 
ing. These notes were often so carelessly kept as not 
even to acknowledge where I stole the thought that gave 
me pleasure. This accounts for my having quotations 
at hand. Another reviewer kindly said that I had a 
'marked grace of style.' My dear old mother used to 
say she never considered a compliment worth having 
that was not totally undeserved ! I never had the slight- 
est idea of possessing any style at all. But what is 
style? It is a weary topic when so much is said about 
'getting style' (like 'getting religion' ) . Schopenhauer's 
remarks on the subject are worth noticing. He writes: 
' There is no quality of style that can be got by reading 
writers who possess it. But if the qualities exist in us 
— exist, that is to say, potentially — we can call them forth 
and bring them into consciousness. We can learn the 
purposes to which they can be put. We can be strength- 
ened in an inclination to use them, or get courage to do 
so. The only way in which reading can form style is by 



SEPTEMBER 3 

teaching us the use to which we can put our own natural 
gifts. We must have these gifts before we can learn the 
use of them. Without them reading teaches us nothing.' 
One friend wrote : ' I should have liked the book 
still better if the moral and domestic reflections had been 
jumbled up with the rest, instead of being put, like an 
appendix, at the end.' With this I entirely agree, but my 
judgment in the matter was overruled by others. The 
most general criticism has been that the various subjects 
in the book are not kept enough apart. Some asked 
' Won't you write a cookery book alone? or a gardening 
book alone?' I could only say that I am no specialist. 
Dozens of such books exist, and are much better than 
any I could write. 1 am and must remain an ignorant 
amateur. My mind only works, as I said before, on the 
lines of collecting knowledge, sweet and bitter, as I walk 
along life's way. What I have I can give, but I can 
neither create nor imagine. The accusations of the sud- 
den jumps from gardening to surgery, or from cooking 
to art, which astonished my readers, are perfectly true. 
But are not these violent and sudden contrasts a marked 
characteristic of modern life ? Do we not, many of us, 
any morning, go from our letters or newspapers — con- 
taining, perhaps, the most tragic human stories, affect- 
ing ourselves or those we love — to the ordering of the 
dinner for the friend who is to come in the evening, or 
seeing that the carriage or the fly is not forgotten for 
the guest who is leaving before noon? Such is life. So 
my months must remain quite as varied as before. It is 
sad to have to repeat the un-English name of l Pot- 
Pourri,' which annoj'ed so many and was never very 
satisfactory to myself; but this book in no way aims at 
being more than a continuation of the first, a kind of 
second volume, a giving of more to those who ask for it. 
The word 'pot-pourri' is so generally accepted in Eng- 



4 MORE POT-POURRI 

land to mean a sweet and pleasant mixture, that we do 
not realize that the original word meant a mixed stew, as 
do its synonyms of 'hotch-potch' and l olla podrida, } a 
favourite Spanish dish consisting of a mixture of various 
kinds of meat chopped fine and stewed with vegetables. 

Most of the letters I received were of kindly and 
affectionate appreciation. But some frankly criticised, 
while others marked shortcomings. As usual, however, 
in such cases, perfectly incompatible qualities were re- 
quired. For instance, most of my gardening friends 
were disappointed at the information about gardening 
being so elementary, telling them little they did not 
know. They very likely overrated what I had to tell 
them, but they entirely missed the point of my omitting 
to make my information as detailed and special as 
I could have done — first, because I referred them to 
real gardening books, and secondly, because I wanted 
what I did tell to be particularly addressed to beginners 
with small gardens who wished to do their best, but had 
little time to spend in the study of other books. On the 
other hand, the ignorant amateurs, for whom it was 
specially written, mournfully complained that it still did 
not begin enough at the beginning. To these I always 
answered that Mr. Robinson must have realized this dif- 
ficulty, as some years ago he reprinted the 'Amateur 
Gardener,' by Mrs. Loudon (Fredk. Warne & Co.) , which 
is full of this elementary information, and to be had 
from any bookseller for the sum of ninepence. 

A third difficulty was the slavish admirer, who, in 
all soils and even with different climates, said : ' I have 
strictly carried out your instructions, and utter failure has 
been the result.' I wish once more to reiterate that 
anything I say, both in the last volume and in this, with 
regard to plant life, is merely the result of my own per- 
sonal experience. All that I state is by way of sug- 



SEPTEMBER 5 

gestion, not by any means as a law to be carried out at 
all times and in all places. Several letters of approval I 
received from working gardeners gave me great pleasure, 
and one said that he found the book ' very bright and 
holding.' This seems to me a most expressive word. An- 
other complaint came from a Londoner, representing the 
opinion of the inhabitants of towns. He was in exact 
contrast to the gardener -friend in the suburbs and in the 
country. He complained bitterly of the long lists of 
plants, the many details about gardening, and asked 
pitifully if this part might not have been relegated 
to an appendix, suggesting that this would make the 
book much more readable. 

One man, who professed to be no gardener at all, said 
his leading idea in gardening was to dismiss the under- 
gardener. This is a very common theory with the master 
of the house, who thinks gardens can be well kept 
very much underhanded. As a rule, the best gardens are 
those where the master of the house superintends the 
gardening himself. 

A woman friend, who dislikes both garden books and 
gardening, wrote: 'Notices of gardening books might, 
for the sake of the village idiot, for whom everyone 
writes, have been put in a chapter quite at the end. 
"Fat," as the actors call it, should come at the begin- 
ning of a book to encourage the reader.'" Perhaps she 
was not wrong, for I believe, so far as I can gather from 
the letters, that the non- gardening people like my book 
best — gardeners, after all, being, as they are the first to 
acknowledge, one-idea'd. And yet no, it cannot have 
been really so, as by far the most genuine and sympa- 
thetic letters I have received have been from real garden 
lovers — the sick, the old, the expatriated, all joining in 
one paean of praise over the soul -satisfying occupation 
of gardening. 



6 MORE POT-POURRI 

A few of the London booksellers were rather amusing 
on the subject, and I have considerable sympathy with 
their opinions. One said to a friend of mine, a few 
months after the book had come out, that it was going 
into the sixth edition and that he 'couldn't conceive 
why, as there was nothing in it.' Another shrewdly re- 
marked that he called the book ' a social success, not a 
literary one.' There was a vein running through several 
letters which I thought perhaps accounted in some way 
for the success of the book, as it proved that many peo- 
ple wished to give it to someone else because they found 
in it a gentle rod wherewith to scourge their neighbour. 
One critic said that 'a spirit of benign and motherly ma- 
terialism broods over the book ' — an expression which I 
thought rather nice, as it was what I had aimed at. A 
second said the book was ' full of good spirits from be- 
ginning to end,' and a third discovered that 'a tone of 
sadness ran through it all.' 

After critics came the friends, who amusingly said: 
'The book is so extraordinarily like yourself, we can hear 
your voice speaking all through it.' Strangers, I am 
told, who know me only by reputation or not at all, 
kindly settled that it was not written by me, but by some 
mysterious unknown person they could not quite hit 
upon. 

It is quite true, and I wish to state it again, as I did 
in my first preface, that I had very real and practical 
assistance from one of my nieces, who made a most effi- 
cient secretary. Our method of working was simple 
enough. I wrote what I wanted to say, and then dictated 
it to her. In reading aloud, the more flagrant mistakes 
and repetitions struck the ear quicker than the eye, as is 
but natural for one more accustomed to speak than to 
write. Two or three other people helped me by toning 
down my crude opinions and taking out whole sentences 



SEPTEMBER 7 

that might have been causes of offence. It has for a 
long time been a favourite theory of mine that, as people 
generally write books with a vague hope that they may 
be read, it is wise to consult a small number of people 
typical of the public, and to be guided, without too much 
self-esteem, by the opinions of these selected few. Of 
course, this opens up the further discussion whether, as I 
saw it well put the other day in the ' Spectator,' ' Suc- 
cess with the multitude is in itself desirable, or if it is 
not rather the hall-mark of a commonplace inferiority. 
Who pleases foolish readers must himself be a fool. If 
the general reader is, after all, quite such a fool as the 
superior junta think him, is another question altogether. 
But he has the marked advantage of holding the verdict 
in his hands.' The only raison d'etre of ephemeral 
literature is that it should be read. The writer of genius 
comes under a different category. He stands on a moun- 
tain-top and breathes a rarer atmosphere, and often can 
only be understood from a distance . ' Bethia Hardacre ' 
exactly expresses this in verse: 

I pray to fail, if to succeed 
Means faithlessness unto my creed. 

Lady Eastlake says on this point : ' Genius, with its 
divine inspirations, may be left to find its way to the 
admiration of the few and in the end to the acknowledg- 
ment of all.' Many will remember when Mr. Quaritch 
brought out Fitzgerald's translation of 'Omar Khayyam,' 
disgusted at its complete failure, he threw the whole edi- 
tion into a 'penny box.' Dante Rossetti found them, 
and we all know the rest. 

Some people said that wnat really pleased them most 
in the book were the little bits of poetry. Considering 
that not one of these was mine, the remark by way of 
compliment was rather humorous. Another curious vein 



8 MORE POT-POURRI 

of flattery that ran through dozens of the letters was 
expressive of the writers' regret that they had not 
written l Pot-Ponrris' of their own, proving the general 
truth of how easy everything is if we only take the 
trouble to do it. 

The cooking receipts caused panic in some minds and 
indignation in others. One poor bachelor told his house- 
keeper to try the receipt in ' Pot -Pourri' for making a 
soup. She happened to hit upon the French chefs ex- 
travagant directions for making consomme and, horrified 
by the numberless pounds of beef recommended, said : 
' Really, sir, it would be far cheaper to have down a 
quantity of tinned soups from the Stores ! ' Another 
careful mistress of her own house complained very much 
of different meats, amounting to six pounds, being used 
for one pie. But in her case the household consisted of 
one thin brother and two thinner maids. My receipts, 
of course, were jumbled together for big and little estab- 
lishments, to be used at the discretion of the housewife. 
A French lady writes that I make a mistake in thinking 
that it is usual in France to baste chickens with butter, 
and that they are much better done with the fat of 
bacon, or suet, or even common lard. I myself gen- 
erally roast chickens with butter, and find that people 
like them very much. But, of course, only fresh butter 
must be used; never that horror called ' cooking gutter. 7 
It is true that basting them with the fat of good bacon 
does make them a better colour. 

In a most humorous article from that delightful 
writer of the ' Pages from a Private Diary ' in the 
'Cornhill,' there were several funny allusions to my 
book. I quote the following as a specimen: 'While 
"doing" my Michaelmas accounts this morning, I 
found that the butter book (for we use Tom's dairy) 
was half as much again as last quarter, and the reason 



SEPTEMBER 9 

given by the responsible Eugenia is that Mrs. Earle 
protests against economy in butter. On referring to the 
passage, I find that she suggests instead an economy in 
meat, and I pointed this out to E.; but the butcher's 
book shows no proportionate diminution. This has led 
me to reflect how much more infectious extravagance is 
than economy.' 

One of my most complimentary letters was from an 
old friend, Mrs. Roundell, asking me to allow her to 
quote some of my receipts in a new cookery book she 
was compiling. This has since appeared under the 
name of 'A Practical Cookery Book' (Bickers & Son), 
and is so excellent that it thoroughly convinces me of 
my wisdom in declining to write one myself. My praise 
of this book almost suggests a mutual admiration 
society, as Mrs. Roundell is very complimentary to me. 
She begins by thankiug me for my receipts, and ends 
by a quotation from l Pot-Pourri' on hospitality and 
housekeeping. It will be many a long year before her 
own book is superseded. The receipts are clear and 
economical, and its only fault seems to be that at 
present it costs seven-and-sixpence. 

A literary friend writes that he has a point of dissent 
— 'a bit of pedantic purism. You say "chickens." 
There is no such word: chickew is a plural. Hose, 
hosen; chick, chicken; and in old days many more — as 
house, housen; place, pleasen. A farmer's wife, at 
least in the west, says correctly that she is going to feed 
her chicken — meaning not one, but many.' It is diffi- 
cult to know when custom asserts itself sufficiently to 
change grammar, and my critic himself admits that 
many of the words he quotes are obsolete. I fear I 
shall hardly have the courage to say ' truss two fine 
chicken ' if I come across such a phrase in a receipt. 

I received very few letters on the nurse question. It 



io MORE POT-POURRI 

had been a good deal discussed in periodicals just before 
the book came out. 

An old friend, a doctor, wrote: 'Your chapter on 
health I take some exception to. On the question that 
starvation is a cure for most of the minor ailments of 
life I agree with you, but I think you are wrong on the 
subject of nurses. You may get some affection and 
kindness on the part of a mother, or a sister, or a wife, 
but I have always held that in really bad cases all three 
make the worst possible nurses, because so few women 
can really control their feelings, and where there were 
great affection and grave anxiety they would be apt to 
fail in some small details which might be of the utmost 
importance, where a good trained nurse would not, 
because she looks on the patient only as a "case," 
which, if she is a conscientious woman, it is her one 
object to get well. My experience also does not tally 
with yours, that the nurse is the tool of the doctor and 
is bound to approve and agree with him. On the con- 
trary, I think many of them, through "a little learn- 
ing," think they know quite as much as, if not more 
than, the doctor, and often use their own discretion (?) 
as to whether they will carry out all the orders given 
them. If the doctor finds out this and remonstrates, he 
then makes an enemy of a person who at any time may 
have an opportunity of doing him much professional 
injury.' I am quite ready to acknowledge the correct- 
ness of these remarks, and if the nurse and doctor do 
not work well together, any opposition on the part of the 
nurse might make .the situation very disagreeable for the 
doctor, and vice versa. If, on the other hand, they 
work extremely well together, the patient may be the 
sufferer, supposing the doctor were mistaken about the 
case, which does happen with men of the greatest talent. 
The too literal carrying out of the doctor's orders, 



SEPTEMBER n 

especially with regard to medicines and sleeping- 
draughts, is often very injurious to the patient. I did 
not for a moment mean to imply that love and devotion 
could supply the qualities that are the result of training. 
But a kind of clear-sightedness and instinct that comes 
from love and devotion is by no means always to be 
found in the professional nurse. 

I continue to quote typical letters on various subjects 
as they crop up. One kind old clergyman thought so 
flatteringly of my powers that he suggests that I should 
'utilise the genius which has popularised your book 
in some of those fields into which your book affords 
glimpses — why not write on heredity?' The fact is, as 
I have already said, I am not able to write a treatise on 
cooking and gardening, much less could I pretend to 
give the world any information on great subjects con- 
nected with science ; and heredity more especially is 
peculiarly buried in darkness, even for experts. He 
concludes a long and interesting letter as follows : ' Some 
years ago Sir F. Galton sent me a paper of inquiries 
(which he was circulating among doctors) as to the 
physical and psychical history of three generations of 
ancestors.' This idea of Sir F. Galton' s has been a 
favourite one with me for years. I have always thought 
that it would be of the greatest interest in families if a 
careful register were kept of people's health, diseases, 
and death, so that some idea might be formed of the 
general tendencies of family diseases, with their suc- 
ceeding development and treatment during three or four 
generations. 

It seems satisfactory that a great number of the news- 
paper critics gave me credit for common-sense. Some 
few passages in 'Sons and Daughters' raised opposition, 
but, I am bound to confess, much less than I expected. 
My great disappointment was that I got so little actual 



12 MORE POT-POURRI 

criticism — I may even say, so little correction. In this, 
I am told, I was ambitious, as most critics compose their 
articles by a few quotations, and have neither time nor 
inclination to really criticise. There was one excellent 
exception in an interesting and friendly article in the 
' Spectator.' This critic seems to doubt, more even than 
I did, the courage of parents and nurses as regards giv- 
ing independence to young children. But, in proof of 
the desirability of my recommendations, he quotes Ste- 
venson's admirable saying with regard to a boy: ' It is 
better for him to break his neck than for you to break 
his spirit.' This article shows the revers de la medaille 
so well, as regards the atmosphere of a home, that I 
copy it. After approving my suggestions about giving 
allowances to both girls and boys, it goes on to say : 
' The question of the frank criticism by children of their 
home is more doubtful. It is, of course, better that their 
dissatisfaction should, like the measles, "come out," but 
what about their home manners ? Criticism is very apt 
to degenerate into grumbling, and the spectacle of chil- 
dren or j r oung people grumbling about domestic arrange- 
ments is not edifying. Grumbling is always rude; and 
if manners make the man, it is an undoubted fact that 
perfect manners are incompatible with absolute brutal 
outspokenness. " For instance, the wife and mother who 
is trying to attain the really lofty standard aimed at in 
this book cannot, of necessity, be absolutely outspoken. 
If her work is to be successful, she must not hint that 
any part of it is distasteful ; that is, she must conceal 
some of her feelings. Surely children should not be 
brought up to feel that their father and mother are the 
only people they may be rude to. And if the money 
argument is to be applied to the wife, it must touch the 
children, too; they must not be allowed to take all the 
luxuries of the house they do not pay for, and then 



SEPTEMBER 13 

grumble because those luxuries are not arranged as they 
like best. And now that we apply this reasoning a sec- 
ond time, we see that in reality it is rather an ugly argu- 
ment. It is a fact, but, like other facts, such as death 
and digestion, it need not be obtruded at every moment. 
The woman's work may be given from love of her home; 
and the children may forbear, also through love, to tell 
their mother that the dinner-hour is not quite the fash- 
ionable one, and "you might have remembered how I 
hate that pudding." The mother will look out for her- 
self and see to the tastes of her family, and will, in talks 
with one and the other, ask for advice and hints on new 
ways of arranging the familiar details of life. And so 
good manners, which are really the Christian virtues 
of patience, charity, and self-control, will reign in that 
house, and it will be a far pleasanter place than if every- 
one in turn were loudly to volunteer their opinion of how 
it ought to be conducted.' 

This has truth in it. All individuals must decide for 
themselves how to draw the line between good manners 
and what may end in whited sepulchres. This is doubly 
difficult with children, whose natural inclination is to 
speak as they feel, for not to do so appears to them 
rather as a deception than as a sparing of other people's 
feelings. Everyone's experience will tell them how early 
children say to others what they dare not say in their 
own home. The great difficulty is to keep the love of 
children. Goethe says : ' There is a politeness of the 
heart; this is closely allied to love. Those who possess 
this purest fountain of natural politeness find it easy to 
express the same in forms of outward propriety.' 

Nothing was more amusing to me than this interest- 
ing variety in the letters about ' Sons and Daughters.' I 
will quote passages from several of them : ' I agree with 
your "Daughters " more than I thought I should. You 



H 



MORE POT-POURRI 



do not lay such stress as I thought you would on the 
necessity of getting married and the "complete" point of 
view.' All the same, I maintain that an unmarried 
woman is not a complete human being. 

' I think the chapter on " Sons " the better of the two. 
But I think independence in boys is far easier to manage 
than in girls. School -life brings boys to their proper 
level. Home-life with absolute freedom rather leads to a 
girl becoming too confident that her own opinion must 
be the right one. She rubs up against so few who can or 
will take her down. The independent girl generally rules 
those of her own age. Of course, you can not lay down a 
hard-and-fast rule for any child. Each one has its differ- 
ent character, to be formed and improved by those who 
live with it. This ought to be done by the mother, but it 
is more often left to an ignorant governess, who does not 
try to understand the child, who has her own narrow- 
minded ideas of right and wrong, and never makes allow- 
ance for high spirit and temper. 7 

' You must remember that the people I was brought 
up amongst take their duties as parents seriously, if 
narrowly — and many of these, as far as they still exist, 
will be a little startled at some of your theories, and the 
wnmoral (mind, I don't say immoral) tone. Parents and 
children are a subject of perennial interest. We have all 
been the one, and many of us the other — and the rest of 
us stand in loco parentis to some at least of the younger 
generation. But as long as the world lasts there will be 
difficulties in that relation. Sijeunesse savait, si vieillesse 
pouvait, is a saw which has many meanings. I totally 
disagree with your idea that the young must never be 
sacrificed to the old, or the healthy to the sick. Why, 
your own remarks on nursing testify to the good that 
may come of such a sacrifice.' 

This last sentence proves to me that my remarks were 



SEPTEMBER 15 

not clear, and the impression conveyed is certainly not 
what I intended. What I really think is that the old 
have no right to command the young to sacrifice their 
lives to them. But, on the other hand, the voluntary 
sacrifice by the young of their own lives, though it should 
be carefully watched by those about them, is certainly 
not without immense benefit to themselves, self-sacrifice 
being acknowledged by all moralists to be the greatest 
strengthener of human character. There is, however, 
the great risk and danger of self -suppression. 

I continue my quotations: 

' You put the question of unselfishness in parents or 
children as being a difficult one, but I have always felt 
that to help each person to be as they ought to be, in the 
best and highest way for their own characters, is the only 
right love and influence that each can have for the other, 
no matter in what relations of life. If you either spoil 
a child or a parent or husband or wife, so that you make 
them behave wrongly, you are sure to be distressed by 
their not doing right, and other people feel the same.' 
Everyone must agree that to make those we love behave 
well is the object to be attained. The difficulty is the 
best method of bringing it about. Is it by unselfish 
example or by exacting unselfishness on the part of 
others ? Who can say ? 

Here is a severe condemnation from a father of several 
children: 'I don't agree one bit with your theoretical 
subordination of old to young. I think it innately ridicu- 
lous, essentially false, and at once morbid, superficial, 
and mischievous.' 

Nobody actually wrote it to me, but I heard it from 
several people, that the advice about giving the latch-key 
to very young boys harassed and worried a great number 
of mothers. Why, I do not quite understand; as showing 
confidence in the boy seems to me the beginning of all 



16 MORE POT-POURRI 

true relations between a mother and a growing -up son. 
I still think that if boys are unfit to have a key at seven- 
teen, or the recommended allowance at an earlier age, it 
shows that their education has been somewhat defective 
in fitting them, not for doing well at school, but for the 
general struggle of life as they get older, which is learnt 
so well by children in a lower class of life. There might, 
of course, be an exception in a family, but that merely 
means that he is more deficient in common-sense than 
his brothers, and should be gradually strengthened by 
some method fitted to his peculiar case. It is a delight- 
ful feeling of comfort to me to think that, whatever I 
suggest, nobody need follow it unless it seems to them 
good ; but I wrote nothing without deliberate thought 
and practical experience. 

As a rule, the book seemed to please the old and the 
young, rather than the middle-aged. Occasionally, how- 
ever, some few parents wrote appreciating my hints about 
the modern danger of children growing up more and more 
apart from their parents. In our grandmothers' days 
this only happened among what have been called the 
'upper ten thousand.' Now it pervades all classes, down 
to the labourer who has to send his children to the infant 
and Board school. Not that schools of any sort are neces- 
sarily bad in themselves, but it is a new position which 
has to be faced with courage and thoughtfulness by the 
parents. 

A young mother wrote full of faith in her own excellent 
principles of how to bring up children, and how easy she 
had found it to gain an influence on their lives. This 
cocksureness, natural and even wholesome in the young, 
often brings about a good deal of disappointment. You 
may make a soil ever so good, and you may plant ever so 
good a seed, but even then there can be no security as to 
results. The very child who is most impressionable and 



SEPTEMBER 17 

easy to form in youth is also most affected by others as 
time goes on. The result of a powerful influence which 
we cannot even trace is what often makes children, as 
they grow up, almost unrecognisable to their parents. 
The forming of character, however, is totally different 
from moulding the impressionable clay, and, like casting 
bread upon the waters, it may return to us after many 
days. 

Here are some pathetic groans from an intensely 
anxious mother of an only daughter : ' Needless to say 
that the chapter of your book which chiefly interested me 
is ' ' Daughters, ' ' the education of my own being the burn- 
ing question with me just now. You are certainly very 
comforting in what you say of "casual and superficial 
education," but I fear that would not satisfy the pro- 
fessed and professing educationalist. In our case, want 
of robustness on M.'s part has obliged us to put up with 
home education, and of course it is then a mere chance 
whether you happen to get a governess who can really 
teach; for the teacher is born, not made. When, how- 
ever, I read the " Parents' Review," or the educational 
literature it recommends, I suffer agonies of remorse from 
the consciousness of not having made enough of these 
early years. My ambition is humble. I only wish my 
child to be average, but not to be at a disadvantage if, 
later on, she is prompted to take some part in the real 
work of the world. And yet how can I, with my own 
old-fashioned, defective education, train her in the right 
way ? This fiend of education sits like a nightmare on 
me almost day and night — "Almost thou persuadest me 
it is impossible to be a parent." When I get up from 
the perusal of these books, I feel castigated to such an 
extent that my mind feels sore all over, and into those 
wounds you pour the oil and wine of consolation. My 
husband, highly educated as he is himself, is very much 



18 MORE POT-POURRI 

inclined to take your view, and has, if anything, kept me 
back rather than urged me on, always fearing that, 
instead of arousing an interest in a subject, one should 
simply cause a lasting distaste, if it is offered too early 
to the immature mind. We cannot, however, put off 
this ' ' training of faculty ; ' indefinitely, and I am becom- 
ing more and more awake to the fact that mj r child, in 
her cosy, comfortable home, does not know as much as I, 
immured in a boarding-school, knew at her age. The 
most tantalising part of the matter is that when I can 
shake off this incubus of dtity, she and I are so happy 
together. I suppose there is some similarity in our 
minds and tastes that makes her very responsive to me. 
I cannot bring myself, owing, doubtless, to my own defec- 
tive bringing-up, to stand at a distance, as it were, and 
criticise severely. As M. has no classes this afternoon, 
we are off to the British Museum — a sort of treat we 
both thoroughly enjoy. But, as you know, I am given 
to misgivings ; the question arises sometimes whether the 
companionship of my mature mind is the best. " Child- 
hood ought to be with childhood " is constantly being 
repeated to me.' 

This letter seemed to me so touching that I sent it to 
a friend of mine much interested in the subject. She 
returned it with the following remarks, which express in 
strong terms very much what I feel myself : ' I quite 
agree — one of the most interesting letters you've had. 
But it is harrowing to me the way this poor mother 
won't let herself benefit by your advice, although she 
seems to approve of it. You ask for my comments. I 
should say she gives the receipt of what her line of con- 
duct should be in the sentence ' ' When I can shake off 
this incubus of duty she and I are so happy together. I 
suppose there is some similarity in our minds and tastes 
that makes her very responsive to me." Just fancy a 



SEPTEMBER 



19 



mother having that opportunity and not using it ! There's 
hardly a parent in fifty could boast as much. Personal 
contact and sympathy with an older parson means hot- 
house growth to the mental capabilities of a child. The 
one fear is lest it should overforce them. What do the 
geography, history, arithmetic, and all the details of 
early education matter? The child's general intelligence 
and power of acquiring knowledge from her own observa- 
tion, which is the only true educator, will develop much 
more fully and rapidly in the mother's company than 
with a governess, especially if the mother lays herself 
out to share all her knowledge, so far as possible, with 
her child. As she grows up, the child will be the first to 
discover where she is at a disadvantage compared to 
others. If she is indifferent about this, I should say no 
one else need mind for her, and she will be none the 
worse. But if she minds, and she probably will, she can 
then acquire the belated knowledge in half the time and 
with half the money spent on teachers that would be re- 
quired if spread out over a childhood more or less reluc- 
tant to learn. Do try and stop the lady from taking in 
"educational literature," for I'm sure it's not only use- 
less but harmful to fret one's conscience unless it leads 
to conviction, and, fortunately, this mother seems not 
convinced by the " professing educationalists." . . 
If the child is already fifteen or sixteen, the only modi- 
fication I should make to what I have said , would be to 
recommend putting most forcibly before the girl herself 
that if she has to, or wishes to, "take some part in 
the real work of the world ' ' she must utilise her best 
faculties to the full, and try to diminish her defi- 
ciencies.' 

The burning question of what girls should or should 
not read called forth a good deal of comment and opposi- 
tion. The following was one of the best of the letters 



20 MORE POT-POURRI 

on this subject: 'I think that, allowing for hereditary- 
instincts and inherited character, or want of it, there can 
be no hard-and-fast rule as to allowing girl children to 
read without restriction. So much allowance must be 
made for the enormous difference in children, who are, 
quite unconsciously to themselves, swayed by tempera- 
ment or feelings the real nature of which they are 
ignorant and innocent of. This question opens up a 
very wide field, and perhaps in your book you could only 
afford space for generalisation on such a subject. I also 
feel that children, like older people and plants and any 
living thing, are subject to the eternal and terrible order 
of change; have phases during which their whole nature 
may become either lethargic and indifferent, or, on the 
other hand, be dominated by sexual feeling, receptive or 
otherwise. One girl at the budding period feels and sees 
nothing harmful to her mind and morals ; while another, 
hitherto pure and simple-minded, may have her imagina- 
tion stimulated and her morbid curiosity partially grati- 
fied by access to all and any kind of reading, and this 
may have the effect of soiling a mind in the first and 
most delicate stage of development. Children, too, are 
extraordinarily unexpected in their phases, and often 
turn out so much better or worse than one thought with- 
out any apparent reason.' As regards the reading, in 
spite of all that has been said, I cannot alter my view 
that, on the whole, it is better to leave a great deal of 
liberty from childhood upwards, allowing the child to 
form her own taste, it being better to manage the read- 
ing of the young by advice than by restrictions. 

September 3rd. — A few days ago I returned home, 
after being abroad and awrty from my garden for over 
three months. I left towards the end of May, when all 
was fresh and green, bursting with bud and life, and full 
of the promise of the coming summer. In three months 



SEPTEMBER 21 

all seemed over ; the little place looked dried up and 
miserable, small, ugly, disappointing — in fact, hardly 
worth possessing at all. 

I felt dreadfully depressed, but, of course, all this was 
in great measure due to the time of year, the end of 
August being the very worst month for this garden, and 
one that I have never attempted to struggle with, yield- 
ing rather to the difficulties and generally going away. 
Shall I also confess my own character had something to 
do with it ? Many people say, 'Absence makes the heart 
grow fonder.' This is not my case under any circum- 
stances, and especially not with my little home and 
garden. The more I live here, the more I tend and 
cherish it ; the more pains I bestow upon it, the more 
I love it. 

When I am urged to travel and change, I only feel 
that I agree with Mr. Watson in these lines: 

Nay, bid me not my cares to leave, 
Who cannot from their shadow flee. 

I do but win a short reprieve, 
'Scaping to pleasure and to thee. 

I may at best a moment's grace, 

And grant of liberty, obtain ; 
Respited for a little space, 

To go back into bonds again. 

After being away for only a short time I come back 
with the keenest excitement. But when I have been 
away for some long time, and got interested in other 
things, I come back in an ungardening mood, have for- 
gotten all the horticultural names, and — if the time of 
year is unfavourable — I see, too clearly, nothing but the 
faults, and have a much too direct answer to Burns' 
prayer in the last verse of his queer little poem, ' To a 
Louse, on seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church ' : 



22 MORE POT-POURRI 

O wad some pow'rthe giftie gi'e us 

To see oursels as others see us ! 

It wad frae monie a blunder free us 

And foolish notion: 
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, 

And ev'n Devotion! 

I love what I am with, but with me, alas ! les absents 
out toujour s tort, and for weeks I had been used to 
greater beauties and wider interests. Here the dome of 
heaven is lower, and no cypresses point upwards. The 
moral to me is quite clear: Gardeners should only go 
away from home to learn, not to see how beautiful the 
world is elsewhere without any gardens at all, the 
science of life being to make the best of what we have 
to our hand, not to pine for what we have not. 

September 5th. — The dryness continues, and we wait 
in vain for rain. The weather makes us doubly appre- 
ciate the small square of cool water just in front of the 
dining-room window, and the pleasure it seems to bring 
to bird and insect. Great fat thrushes splash them- 
selves in the shallow edges specially prepared for them 
with big stones, as they seem much afraid of deep 
water. Two of us were sitting at early breakfast, when 
my companion said to me in a subdued voice, ' Look 
there ! ' I saw, perched ou a hanging branch of the 
rose growing on the Pergola, the most beautiful King- 
fisher. His blue wings flashed in the sunshine, and, 
turning his red breast, it glowed like that of a tropical 
bird. In a few seconds he flew away. I have never 
before seen a Kingfisher in this dry garden, and I can 
only account for it, as we are more than a mile from the 
river, by something peculiar in the season and his being 
attracted, in his search for food, by the gold-fish in my 
little fountain. A friend told me that the same thing 
happened in her garden, and that the Kingfisher, never 
seen before, beat himself against the glass window. 



SEPTEMBER 23 

One of the few things that looked really well in the 
garden when I came home was the Cape annual, Nemesia 
strumosa. The dryness apparently had suited the 
flowering capabilities of the annual, but, finding that it 
was forming no seed, I watered it daily, as it is one of 
the plants from which it is well worth while to save the 
seed, selecting it from the best-coloured flowers. The 
seed Avants a good deal of care in the gathering, as it 
is so very ephemeral — unripe one day and gone the 
next. For a person of my age, it means groping on 
the ground each morning with one's spectacles on. 
I certainly must add it to the list of annuals worth 
growing in a small garden. We sow it in place the 
middle of May. 

September 7th. — The old-fashioned Zauschneria Cali- 
fornia, when well grown, is a very pretty plant, with 
its soft gray leaves and scarlet flowers. I have had it 
for years, and it has stood any amount of moving about 
into different places. It never died, and yet never 
flowered. I grew it on rockwork, I grew it in shade, I 
grew it in the sun. It formed bushy little plants, but 
never had a single flower. My patience was nearly 
coming to an end, and I fell back on the gardener's 
usual solace— that the soil did not suit it. When I paid 
a visit to Mr. Thompson, of Ipswich, I found it flowering 
most satisfactorily, and learnt from him the eternal 
story that what it wanted was good feeding. It should 
have very good, rich soil, plenty of manure, and be put 
in a place that is free of damp in winter. This is the 
difficulty with so many of the foreign plants we try to 
grow. They want damp in their flowering-time, when 
we are dry; and dryness in the winter, when we are 
wet. I came home, broke up my Zauschneria, planted 
it on the edge of a raised vine-border, in full sunshine 
and with very well rotted manure. Helped, no doubt, 



24 MORE POT-POURRI 

also by the sunny season, it has flowered splendidly this 
year, and is even finer than the one I had seen at 
Ipswich. I think it is the better, like many other 
things, for watering when the buds are formed. I see 
in an un-modern gardening book that it only came to 
England in 1847. We find no difficulty in propagating 
it by division in spring. Cuttings strike easily in a 
little heat, and form blooming plants in the same season. 

Phloxes have done very badly this year, whether 
removed from the reserve garden or left alone. In very 
dry seasons it is best to quickly cut them down; they 
flower again well when the rain comes. Michauxia cam- 
panuloides is flowering now for the second time. I have 
never grown it before, and its first bloom was in June, 
while I was away, so that I did not see it in its prime. 
The seed, unfortunately, does not ripen here, but it seems 
to me a plant worthy of all the trouble that biennials 
give; and experiments should be tried in growing it. I 
am now going to try it grown the second year in pots, 
under glass, in a cool house, in the same way as Cam- 
panula pyramidalis is grown. I expect it will be very 
fine. When grown out of doors it should be moved from 
the seed-bed into a dry, sunny place, and it wants as 
much water as you can give it when about to flower. It 
is figured in Vol. xvii of Curtis' 'Botanical Magazine,' 
but the flower there depicted gives little idea of the 
beauty of the whole plant, although the unusual shape 
and loveliness of the flower itself are well rendered. 
Michauxia tchinatchewii (see Thompson's list) is new to 
me and, I am told, good. 

The Belladonna Lilies, treated as described in my 
first book, have flowered excellently, many having two 
flower -stems from apparently the same bulb. I imme- 
diately seut to Holland for two dozen more, as I believe 
there has been a disease among them in some places and 



SEPTEMBER 25 

that they are now rather scarce. As an example of how 
small a thing will affect the flowering of Cape bulbs, I 
noted this spring that the leaves in the more northern 
part of my little bed got injured by frost and east wind 
— not very severely, but slightly — and out of that dozen 
bulbs only one flowered. 

A favourite little plant of mine, which I have had for 
years, has flowered unusually well this year. It is called 
Tricyrtis hirta, and is a small Japanese Lily — very quiet 
in colour, and spotted all over with lilac spots, but beau- 
tiful in its growth, and well worth cultivating. The dry 
rockwork seems to suit it, but I generally water it when 
coming into flower. Every year, as it comes round, it 
is a pleasurable excitement to see it develop its late 
flowers. In a book by Mrs. Brightwen ('Glimpses into 
Plant Life: an Easy Guide to the Study of Botany,' 
Fisher Unwin) , it is alluded to as a typical pollenation 
plant. She says: 'We have seen that there are all kinds 
of devices by which the pollen of one flower may be made 
sure to reach the stigma of another; but if by any means 
this crossing fails, if the weather is such that insects are 
scarce or other conditions cause failure, then, in the case 
of many flowers, most curious contrivances are provided 
to secure seed by self-pollenation. Truly, this is one of 
the most beautiful of God's wonders in floral construc- 
tion. One of the gems of my oavu flower-garden is a 
lovely little Japanese toad-lily (Tricyrtis hirta). In this 
flower there are three stjdes, which stand well above the 
stamens; the points of the styles are bent over, and the 
stigmatic surface grows mature before the anthers shed 
their pollen. If, however, no insect visits the flowers, 
pollenation is effected in the following way: The styles 
bend down and place their forked points in direct con- 
tact with the open anther -lobes, the style assuming 
almost the form of a semicircle. This is done very 



26 MORE POT-POURRI 

deliberately, for it is often a week before the act is com- 
plete.' I think that 'Glimpses into Plant Life' is a book 
that everyone interested in country life or a garden 
would very much enjoy. The illustrations are clear and 
good, and explain the text satisfactorily. 

Nothing is more useful at this time of the year in 
a window or a greenhouse than Vallota purpurea. It 
is perfectly easy of cultivation, if the leaves are encour- 
aged in their growth and thoroughly sunned and dried 
off. The bulb should be very rarely re -potted and well 
watered in its growing state. I am always hearing that 
people lose their plants; this is probably from the gar- 
dener's over -care and keeping them too warm and wet 
through the winter. I am going to try them out of 
doors next year, as Mr. Robinson recommends, now that 
I have plenty of offsets, but I confess I have never seen 
them doing well in England out of doors. They prob- 
ably do not fear cold, as I saw many in full flower on 
cottage window-sills in Norway. 

The west sides of rockeries are often very dull, 
especially in autumn. I find Origanum hybridum is a 
charming, interesting, curious little plant that flowers 
freely in a dry place in August and September. It is 
almost exactly the same as the old 0. dictamnus figured 
in Vol. xix of Curtis' 'Botanical Magazine.' Curtis 
says: ' Turner, whose Herbal was printed in 1568, writes 
thus concerning it : "I have seen it growynge in Eng- 
land in Master Riches gardin naturally, but it groweth 
nowhere ellis that I know of saving only in Candy." 
This is rather a nice way of telling us where the plant 
comes from. It seems easy of cultivation, and worth 
growing. Caryopteris macrantlie is a little blue dwarf 
shrub that I have hardly ever seen anywhere, but which 
I grow and increase here quite easily, and find it very 
attractive. It wants a dry situation, and flowers better 



SEPTEMBER 27 

if cut back after flowering. It should be fed with a 
little mulching and watering when it comes into bud. 
I increase it easily from cuttings in spring. 

As time goes on, I become fonder and fonder of the 
generally abused Polygonums. Mr. Robinson, in his 
latest edition of 'The English Flower Garden,' speaks 
of them also with much favour, and gives a splendid list 
of the varieties; but even he does not lay stress enough 
upon what entirely different plants they become if suf- 
ficiently thinned out and the suckers pulled off each 
spring. Otherwise they are ragged, intolerable weeds. 
If P. sachalinense is planted even under shade or in 
half shade, thinned out to three or four shoots, and 
watered or hosed in dry weather, the yearly growth is 
absolutely tropical. It turns a rich yellow colour in 
early autumn, and forms a splendid feature in places 
where many plants would not grow at all, such as under 
Fir-trees or in very poor soil. P. molle I do not think 
Mr. Robinson names, and yet it is a beautiful thing ; 
though some years, if in an exposed place, it flowers 
so late that it gets injured by frost. It requires divid- 
ing every autumn, re-planting in better soil, and thin- 
ning every spring ; it is well, if it can be watered, to 
grow it under some tree or shrub, which protects it in 
case of early frost. It is worth some trouble, as its 
flowering branches, almost like feathery white lilac, are 
very handsome, coining, as they do, so late in the year. 
P. Leirhflini. is a very dwarf kind I brought from Ger- 
many, and will, I think, prove a useful little plant on 
the rockery for September flowering. The light blue 
Cape Plumbago capensis is doing very well this hot year, 
and is covered, out of doors, with its lovely cool china- 
blue flowers. No other colour in the garden is quite 
like it. It looks especially well planted against the posts 
of a verandah. We pot up the old plants in October, 



28 MORE POT-POURRI 

cut them back, tie them up — when they take very little 
room — and keep them rather dry all winter in a cold 
shed just safe from the frost. We bring them on a 
little in the spring, and plant them out the end of May 
against a warm wall, though I am not at all sure that this 
last is necessary. All they want is sunshine and copious 
waterings. They are commonly treated in this way in 
German gardens. Mr. Robinson says they can be in- 
creased by division of the roots, but we also find cut- 
tings strike easily in spring ; and three or four young 
plants in a pot, as they flower at the top, are very pretty 
in a greenhouse or window. Solatium jasminoides can 
be treated in exactly the same way, though it will live 
out through ordinary winters, especially if sheltered by 
some other growth. 

Last spring my jealousy was excited by seeing 
Camellias flowering very well out of doors. The prin- 
ciple on which they were managed was to plant them in 
a thick shrubbery with overhanging branches of Rhodo- 
dendron or some other evergreen shrub. The ground 
was prepared with a good deal of peat. In consequence 
of the successful healthy look of these Camellias, I have 
myself planted out two large old trees. The great 
secret of success is that they should face due north, and 
be well watered in dry weather. If Dielytra spectabilis 
is planted in the same way, facing north and under the 
protection of some shrub, it flowers well out of doors. It 
always gets injured by spring winds and frosts in the 
open borders here. 

Septeynoer 10th. — All the Funkias are worth growing, 
but all might be left out of a small garden except Funkia 
Sieboldi. That, anyhow, must be grown out of doors, as 
it is a beautiful plant, gives no trouble, flowers every 
year, and lasts very well in water. If kept in a pot it 
flowers at the same time as out of doors, but under 



SEPTEMBER 29 

glass the flowers are distinctly finer. It is not very 
often seen, but is quite the handsomest, I think, of the 
Funkias. 

A friend asks me to recommend a really good book on 
the kitchen garden, including the proper treatment of 
fruit trees. I know no one book complete; the informa- 
tion on vegetables and fruit must be gleaned apart. For 
detailed directions on the culture of vegetables, none 
comes near the translation of Vilrnorin's, mentioned 
before. But for ordinary purposes and as a cheap 
book, Sutton's ' The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers' 
(Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.) is excellent. 
'Profitable Fruit-growing,' by John Wright, F.R.H.S. 
(171 Fleet street, London), is clear, comprehensive, and 
concise, giving excellent information on pruning and 
general cultivation of all outdoor fruit trees, and cur- 
rants, gooseberries, and raspberries. It makes no allu- 
sion to orchard-houses, nor to vines under glass or out 
of doors. 

Samphire is a herb I have never yet tried to grow. I 
believe it is only to be had wild in its integrity from 
Norfolk, where they still make quite an industry of 
gathering and pickling it. The fresh Samphire is only 
to be found in August and September. 

A critic in ' The Guardian' on l Pot-Pourri ' says it is 
a mistake to prune Chymonanthus fragrans after flower- 
ing in the winter, as I suggested ; and adds, ' it should 
be done late in the summer by shortening back the 
year's growths to a quarter of their own length or less, 
to throw the vigour of the shrub into the short flower- 
ing spur rather than let it run into long, leafy and 
flowerless branches.' I think this quite true, but I call 
that cutting back. What I mean b} r 'pruning' is taking 
out real branches, and I think that is desirable here in 
this light soil with nearly all the flowering shrubs 



30 MORE POT-POURRI 

directly after flowering, as well as cutting back later in 
the year if they make too much growth. 

I wonder the claret -coloured Vine is so seldom 
planted. The foliage is handsome and effective, and the 
little bunches of black grapes are interesting, and remind 
one of the ornaments in early Gothic churches. The 
stunted bunches are quite different in shape from those 
of ordinary grapes. They grow well up a pole, and 
make a good rough arch. Pancretiums are excellent 
greenhouse plants and well worth growing, especially P. 
fragrans. But in a small garden and greenhouse all 
these bulbs and plants want remembering and looking 
after, in order to get a good succession, and the head of 
the garden must help the gardener, as it is absolutely 
impossible, with the number of things requiring his 
constant attention, that he should remember them all 
himself. 

September 11th. — What a week of excitement this has 
been, even for those without near relations in that far- 
away Nile Valley ! Never in all my life do I remem- 
ber what might be called the aggressive, grasping, 
ruling spirit of the typical John Bull to have been 
so united and so universal. War, and the pity of it, and 
the question why it has to be, which was so strong a 
feeling and which had such large numbers of supporters 
in the old Crimean day and even in the Indian Mutiny 
time, seems now simply non-existent. Is this gain or is 
it loss ? Is it progress or is it retrogression ? A most 
curious and, to me, poetic description, showing the 
conservativeness of the East, and how certain effects 
suggesting certain word-paintings were the same in the 
time of David as to-day, struck me very forcibly when I 
read it in yesterday's 'Spectator,' and I record it here. 
That a figure of speech which has long puzzled some- 
what ignorant Bible commentators should be explained, 



SEPTEMBER 31 

as with a lime -light flash, by the unconscious wording of 
a war correspondent of to-day, seems indeed a drawing 
together of all historic times : 

' The telegraphic despatch conveying the news of the 
battle of Omdurman contained an interesting illustra- 
tion of a verse of the sixty -eighth Psalm which has 
caused some difficulty to commentators. The Prayer 
Book version reads (verse 14): "When the Almighty 
scattered kings for their sake : then were they as white 
as snow in Salmon" — i. e., as generally explained, the 
flashing of the armour of the slain warriors resembled 
the snow shining on the dark boughs of the forest. 
Unconsciously, perhaps, the writer of the telegraphic 
despatch has used the same simile. His words are : 
"After the dense mass of the Dervishes had melted to 
companies and the companies to driblets, they broke and 
fled, leaving the field white with jibba-clad corpses, 
like a meadow dotted with snowdrifts."' 

Is this really the last of these snow-flecked plains, or 
will another Mahdi and other Dervishes arise in future 
ages, to once more strew the ground with these white- 
clad corpses ? 

September 13th. — Last year, about this time, I drove 
to Mr. Barr's, at Long Ditton, and there I saw, planted 
out in an open bed, Tigridias, both white and red ; and 
they looked splendid. I have never seen them grown 
out of doors in gardens, but Mrs. Loudon, in her ' Ladies' 
Flower Garden' (the volume on bulbous plants), speaks 
of them as easily cultivated if taken up in the autumn. 
Mrs. Loudon says: 'They have tunicated bulbs and 
very long, fibrous roots, whi^h descend perpendicularly. 
They should be planted in a very deep, rich soil, which 
should either be of an open nature, or be kept so by a 
mixture of a sufficient quantity of sand, so as to allow a 
free passage for the descent of the roots, in the same 



32 MORE POT-POURRI 

way as is necessary for Hyacinths. If Tigridias are to 
be raised from seed, the seeds are sown in March or 
April in a hotbed and transplanted into the open 
border in May. Here they may remain till the leaves 
begin to wither in autumn, when the young bulbs should 
be taken up and kept for planting the ensuing spring. 
The splendid colours of this flower and the easiness of 
its culture render it a general favourite. Its only 
faults are that its flowers have no fragrance, and that 
they are of very short duration, never lasting more than 
a day. But they are produced in such abundance in 
succession as to compensate for this defect. It is a 
native of Mexico. In its native country its bulb is con- 
sidered medicinal, and it was on this account that it was 
sent to Europe by Hernandez, physician to Philip II of 
Spain when he was employed bj* the Spanish Govern- 
ment to examine into ' the virtues ' of the plants of the 
New World. It was not introduced into England till 
1796. It is sufficiently hardy to be left in the ground 
all the winter, were it not on account of the danger to 
which it would be exposed from damp. It is better to 
take it up in September or October, tie it in bundles, 
and hang it up in a dry place till spring. Why it is 
always grown by gardeners in pots I do not know. In 
his last edition, Mr. Robinson speaks very favourably of 
growing it out of doors, and mentions particularly the 
ivory white one with carmine-red base, which I saw 
last year and thought very beautiful. What he says 
about cultivation is exactly what I have quoted above 
from Mrs. Loudon. In fact, treat them exactly as one 
would the Gandavensis gladioli. Gerarde, in his Herbal, 
speaks with delightful distrust of the very existence of 
the Tigridia as described by travellers. After trying to 
illustrate the plant from description, he goes on to say : 
' The second feigned picture hath beene taken of the 



SEPTEMBER 



33 



Discouerer and others of later time, to be a kinde of 
Dragons not seene of any that haue written thereof ; 
which hath moued them to thinke it a feigned picture 
likewise ; notwithstanding you shall receiue the descrip- 
tion thereof as it hath come to my hands. The root 
(saith my Author) is bulbous or Onion fashion, out- 
wardly blacke ; from the which springs vp long leaues, 
sharpe pointed, narrow, and of a fresh greene colour: in 
the middest of which leaues rise vp naked or bare 
stalkes, at the top whereof groweth a pleasant yellow 
floure, stained with many small red spots here and there 
confusedly cast abroad: and in the middest of the floure 
thrusteth forth a long red tongue or stile, which in time 
groweth to be the cod or seed-vessell, crooked or 
wreathed, wherein is the seed. The virtues and tem- 
perature are not to be spoken of, considering that we 
assuredly persuade our selues that there are no such 
plants, but meere fictions and deuices, as we terme 
them, to giue his friend a gudgeon.' ' Giving his friend 
a gudgeon ' is apparently a Gerardian expression for 
what we should now call in familiar language ' pulling 
his leg.' 

I alluded before (page 132 of 'Pot-Pourri') to the 
cultivation of the large Japanese Stonecrop (Sedum 
spectabile) . I have grown to like it more and more, 
because it is a very obliging plant, and will grow even 
in shade, though the specimens are far finer if grown in 
good soil and moved into a sunny place in July or 
August. I always take this little trouble, and in Sep- 
tember I have my reward. Many people will not 
appreciate the great beauties of this plant because of 
the colour of the flowers, which are of rather an inartis- 
tic magenta- pink; but the insects do not find this so, 
and the reason I grow so much of it is that the bees 
simply love it. The little hard-working honey-bee, the 



34 MORE POT-POURRI 

large, handsome bumble-bee, flies and beetles of all 
kinds, and the beautiful common butterflies, all flop 
about it with the keenest enjoyment, the colour of the 
flower only making a groundwork to their bright hues 
on a sunny September morning. I never fail either to 
think, as I look at this scene, of a little poem by Victor 
Hugo which was the delight of my youth, though per- 
haps for non- floral reasons: 

La pauvre fleur disait au papillon celeste : 

' Ne fuis pas ! 
Vois comme nos destins sont differents. Je reste, 

Tu t'en vas! 

' Pourtant nous nous aiinons, nous vivons sans les hommes 

Et loin d'eux, 
Et nous nous ressemblons, et l'on dit que nous sommes 

Fleurs tous deux! 

' Mais, helas! l'air t'emporte et la terre m'enchaine; 

Sort cruel ! 
Je voudrais embaumer ton vol de mon haleine 

Dans le ciel ! 

' Mais non, tu vas trop loin! Parmi des fleurs sans nombre 

Vous fuyez, 
Et moi je reste seul a voir tourner mon ombre 

A mes pieds ! 

' Tu fuis, puis tu reviens, puis tu t'en vas encore 

Luire ailleurs. 
Aussi me trouves-tu tou jours a chaque aurore 

Toute en pleurs ! 

' Oh ! pour que notre amour eoule des jours fideles, 

O mon roi ; 
Prends comme moi racine, ou donne moi des ailes 

Comme a toi ! ' 

Now and then quite strange insects appear just once, 
and then never again. I have heard this is because 
eggs of insects are sometimes deposited in baskets or 



SEPTEMBER 35 

bales bringing goods from hot countries, which in dry 
summers are hatched out in these northern climates. 
One summer my Sedums were covered with a lovely 
green beetle. I have never seen him again, but I am 
too ignorant to know if he were a stranger or only an 
insect common in our gardens and appearing in some 
summers and not in others — a usual occurrence with all 
insects. Sometimes there are a quantity of one kind, 
they having triumphed over their natural enemies and 
flourished abundantly. Then for a year or two they 
disappear entirely. This is an especial characteristic 
of butterflies. I thought there might be some way of 
encouraging butterflies in my garden, where they seem 
to have become rarer, and I asked a friend, who has 
studied natural history all his life, whether he could help 
me to do this. His answer was : ' The way to have 
butterflies is to encourage the food -plants of the cater- 
pillar.' He added: 'Fortunately, our three handsomest 
English butterflies feed on the nettle — the Peacock, the 
Small Tortoiseshell, and the Red Admiral. The Purple 
Emperor is too rare for consideration.' I, being a 
gardener before all things, did not think it was at all 
fortunate that their natural food was nettles. I had 
spent my whole life in eradicating nettles, so it is 
perhaps not astonishing if butterflies have become less 
in my garden. 

We have had a great many figs this year, and they 
have ripened well. No doubt they do better since we 
have removed suckers and the small autumn figs that 
never ripen here. It is curious how few people in Eng- 
land realize that, apparently, the fig never flowers, and 
that what we call the fruit is the flower. Male and 
female mixed are inside the fig, which when it enlarges 
forms the receptacle and encloses numerous one -seeded 
carpels imbedded in its pulp. This may be seen quite 



36 MORE POT-POURRI 

plainly by cutting open a slightly unripe fig. I used to 
think the flower of the Fig was so small that it was in- 
visible ! My little Mulberry tree, planted only fifteen 
years ago and now a good size, did wonderfully well this 
year. All over England Mulberries fruited in great 
quantities from the hot, dry season. They are trees that 
require much judicious pruning, and taking out of great 
branches now and theu, or the fruit never ripens 
because of the size and thickness of the leaves. I have 
lately read that Leonardo da Vinci's great patron at 
Milan, Ludovico il Moro, was so named, not from the 
darkness of his complexion, as Gibbon supposes, but 
because he took a Mulberry tree (moro) for his device — 
from its being considered wiser than all other trees, as it 
buds later and does not flower until it has escaped the 
injuries of winter, when it immediately bears fruit. This 
the Prince considered was emblematic of his disposition. 
To us it means that Mulberry trees should be much more 
grown than they are, not only because they are beautiful 
and useful, but because of this late budding. The fruit 
is excellent cooked with apples, even if it is not quite 
ripe. Sweet Spanish Chestnuts are also very late trees 
in spring. 

Sweet-scented Geraniums cut back in the spring do 
best for autumn and winter. For planting out the next 
year, they should be cut back hard, like show Pelargo- 
niums, at the end of September . 

My trees of Magnolia grandiflora, though still small, 
are covered this year with their beautiful flowers. These 
are, I am sure, best always cut off. It only strengthens 
the trees for forming flower-buds next year. 

September 15th. — For those who care to have Sweet 
Peas early in the year, it is well to sow them now in the 
drills or holes, so as to earth them up a little after they 
come through the soil. 



SEPTEMBER 37 

Cassia corymbosa is a yellow greenhouse plant now in 
flower and very useful. It is so nearly hardy that it will 
grow, like the blue Plumbago, against a south wall in 
the summer months. It comes from Buenos Ayres, and 
won't stand any frost. 

September 25th. — I saw a Suffolk garden this Septem- 
ber, where I learnt more in an hour than one would do in 
most places in a week. It was a beautiful, stately, flat 
garden and on a very large scale, with tall trees and 
broad expanses of lawn, which, in spite of my opinion 
stated before, and which angered so many of my readers 
(about overdoing grass in small places), I do immensely 
admire when sufficiently spacious and with spreading 
timber feathering to the ground. I saw in this garden 
the finest tubs of Hydrangeas I have ever seen anywhere. 
They were much raised above the ground, on a half -tub 
reversed or on bricks, so that the plants, which had been 
left alone for many years, fell all around, covering the 
tubs almost entirely. The tubs were painted white, and 
the gardener told me that instead of putting them into 
any house or shed in winter he put them under very 
thick shrubs. In his case he was fortunate to have an 
Ilex grove. Nothing was cut off the Hydrangeas but the 
faded flowers. By this means they get the damp and 
cold, which only strengthen them in their resting state. 
In the spring he cuts out the dead wood, mulches and 
copiously waters them when they begin to grow, and the 
result was certainly most satisfactory , Hydrangeas 
strike very easily in spring ; and small young plants, 
especially if white or blue — which the pink ones will 
often turn to if planted in peat — make useful small dec- 
orative plants in a greenhouse or for late flowering. 
The tubs of Cape Agapanthus were less fine in foliage 
than mine are; but they had spike upon spike of bloom, 
which is really what one wants. He treated these in the 



38 MORE POT-POURRI 

same way as before described for Hydrangeas, leaving 
them out all the winter. Mine were kept in a cool green- 
house, and looked perfectly healthy, but had hardly any 
flowers at all this year. It's the old story. Everything 
from the Cape stands many kinds of treatment, but must 
have a long period of rest in order to flower well. Under 
a tall wall facing west in this Suffolk garden was a 
glorious border of many of the hardiest Bamboos, with a 
few strong -growing herbaceous plants in between and 
towards the front. The soil, in spite of the dryness of 
the year, was moist and very heavy, and the gardener 
told me he never dug up the border or touched it except 
to thin out and dig a big wedge out of the herbaceous 
plants with his spade in winter, filling up the hole with 
strong manure well stamped in. This, where size of 
clumps and filling up of large spaces are wanted, is quite 
an admirable plan. No re -planting is either necessary 
or desirable. In a small garden and light soil, where 
refinement and specimen plants are desired, re -planting 
and dividing, as well as thinning out, certainly seem to 
me to give finer blooms. On the top of a low wall, divid- 
ing this garden from another portion of it, were some 
flower -boxes well filled with trailing and half-hardy 
plants, brilliant in colour and easy to water and attend 
to ; and the effect was very good, and might be adopted 
on those dreary little walls that sometimes divide small 
villa gardens from their neighbours. The evaporation 
from painted wood is very much less than from flower- 
pots, and there is no fear of their being thrown over by 
a high wind. 

Going about, I observe that — next to pruning and 
cutting back — there is nothing people are so ignorant 
about as watering, especially in dry weather. The 
ordinary non - gardening mind seems to think that if a 
thing looks blighted or faded or drooping, it is ' below 



SEPTEMBER 



39 



par ' , and that water acts as the required tonic ; whereas 
it is often that the dry weather has only hastened the 
period of rest, and when that is the case nothing is so 
hopeless as watering anything that is not in full growth. 
Consequently, in mixed borders, unless very carefully 
done, to a plant that is coming into bud, watering — 
and, above all, hosing — is best left alone; and much 
watering in the summer is very injurious to spring- 
flowering shrubs. At the same time, copious soaking 
once or twice a week is necessary very often to keep 
newly planted things alive. Half-hardy planted -out 
things, annuals, and plants lately moved from the 
reserve garden, can safely be watered. In this Suffolk 
garden all watering was done at four or five in the 
morning, the gardeners leaving off work at two in the 
afternoon. This plan, I think, would often work very 
well, both for the masters and men, during the long, hot 
days, but gardeners seldom like it. 

Receipts 

I indiscreetly asked one of my rather intimate friends 
whether he had read 'Pot-Pourri.' He said, rather 
hastily: 'No; I gave it to my cook.' This impressed 
me with the idea that a good number of people valued 
the first 'Pot-Pourri' a great deal more for its cooking 
receipts than for anything else. Consequently, the book 
quickly leaves the library or the drawing-room for the 
kitchen, and I think it would be a distinct assistance to 
the cook if I keep these new receipts as much as possible 
together, though I allot them a place in each month, as 
the times and seasons have such a great influence on 
food and garden produce. In this book I reserve to 
myself the right to spell recipe 'receipt,' to which some 
of my friends objected before. I was taught that recipe 



4 o MORE POT-POURRI 

meant a prescription, and it always seems to me a slight 
affectation when I see it in a cookery book. I believe 
'receipt' to be quite as old and good a word used in this 
sense. In an old cookery book of mine, which was 
written by a lady and published in 1770, the word is 
spelt 'receipt.' 

I take a great interest in cooks, and am always most 
anxious to help them, having agreed from my youth 
upwards with Owen, Meredith's delicious lines in 
'Lueile' : 

We may live without poetry, music, and art; 

We may live without conscience, and live without heart; 

We may live without friends ; we may live without books ; 

But civilised man cannot live without cooks. 

He may live without books — what is knowledge but grieving ? 

He may live without hope — what is hope but deceiving ? 

He may live without love — what is passion but pining ? 

But where is the man that can live without dining ? 

There have been some complaints about the cooking 
receipts not being exact enough. I had tried them all 
myself, and with success, with several cooks, but I do 
not deny they were intended for those who understood 
cooking sufficiently to refer to more detailed books when 
they felt themselves to be ignorant. I shall continue to 
refer to ' Dainty Dishes' (by Lady Harriet St. Clair) as I 
did before, and without it my receipts are incomplete. 
Cooks differ very much in how they follow receipts. 
Some try to do it literally, but without judgment as 
regards increasing or decreasing quantities according to 
the number for whom they have to cook. Other cooks 
accept a receipt with the distinct conviction that their 
own way is far the best, and naturally then the new 
receipt does not turn out very satisfactorily. A good 
many cooks carry out a receipt very well the first time, 
and then think they know it by heart, and in a high- 



SEPTEMBER 41 

handed way never look at it again. All this is where the 
eye and the head of the mistress come in. Without 
showing it, she must know the peculiarities of her own 
particular cook, and by gentle flattery lead her back into 
the right way. As my excuse for a certain vagueness in 
some of the receipts, I give them as they were given to 
me, for I did not by any means invent them all. Even 
when they are mine, I instruct the cook, but do not 
myself cook. 

Some of my nieces scolded me for not putting the 
receipt for my bread sauce in my last book, saying they 
so seldom found it really good elsewhere. It is made in 
every English kitchen, small and big ; and yet how very 
rarely is it excellent, as it ought to be, and with what 
horror is it viewed by foreigners ! 

Bread Sauce. — It is very important that the bread 
should be grated from a tin loaf, and allowed to dry in 
a paper bag for some time before using it. It is abso- 
lutely impossible to make good bread sauce with new 
bread. Cut up an onion in rather large pieces, boil it in 
milk, pass it through a sieve, or remove the onion. Pour 
the milk boiling over the crumbs, and add a few pepper- 
corns. Boil the whole in a china saucepan for about 
twenty minutes. As the milk is absorbed, add a little 
more until it is an even mass, neither too moist nor too 
dry. Remove the pepper-corns before serving, and stir 
in a large piece of fresh butter. Many people add 
cream, which spoils it. Cream makes the sauce tasteless 
and fade. 

The following is a much simpler receipt and suggests 
a poultice rather more than I quite like ; but it is excellent 
to eat, and useful to know, as it can be carried out in a 
sick-room or a lodging-house kitchen. Take a break- 
fastcupful of fresh breadcrumbs, rubbed, not grated ; a 
breakfastcupful of milk. Cut up into it an onion, and 



4 2 



MORE POT-POURRI 



add two or three pepper -corns. Boil the milk up and 
pour it on the crumbs, which have been put into a 
small basin. Cover over, and let it stand for two hours. 
Remove any pieces of onion that show. Warm up before 
it is wanted, with a small piece of fresh butter the size 
of a walnut. 

It is also, under the same circumstances, useful to 
know that chickens or game of any kind can be per- 
fectly well roasted in a baking-tin on a little kettle- 
stand in front of any ordinary fire in the following way : 
Put a little bacon fat in the pan, lay the bird in it on 
its side, with the back towards the fire. Baste well. 
When sufficiently done, turn it onto the other leg, with 
the back still towards the fire. For ten minutes at the 
end, with a large fowl or pheasant, turn the breast to the 
fire, basting it well. The time a bird will take to roast 
must depend on its size. Woodcocks, snipe, and larks 
will take a very short time. 

Vegetable Marrow. — Peel a young vegetable mar- 
row, cut it across in slices the thickness of a finger, and 
put them in a tin in a moderate oven, with a little piece 
of butter on each. Bake for nearly an hour. Prepare 
some pieces of toast slightly buttered and hot. Lay a 
slice of the vegetable marrow on each piece. Warm in 
butter a little of the sweet -chutney (see 'Pot-Potirri,' 
page 126), put half a teaspoonful of it onto each slice, 
and serve. 

If vegetable marrows get past being young, let them 
ripen well, then dry and store them on a shelf in the 
fruit -house or elsewhere. In winter break one up by 
hammering a knife through it, clean out the seeds, 
cut the pieces into small dice half an inch square, boil 
them with very little salt in cold water till soft, strain 
them, and make a nice thick white sauce (Bechamel) . 
Put the marrow in the sauce, add a small piece of 



SEPTEMBER 43 

sugar, and serve hot. Pumpkins can be treated in the 
same way. 

If you have grown the little ridge cucumbers — those 
recommended in Sutton's book do very well either in a 
cool house or outside — and have had any left over in 
this month, which I never have, this German receipt for 
preserving them — in Germany they always grow them 
in large quantities — is very useful and good. 

Cucumbers preserved in salt (in a barrel or stone 
jar). — Pick the outdoor cucumbers when about three 
inches long and one inch thick. Brush them iu a large 
tub of cold water till quite clean. Spread them on a 
table to dry. Meanwhile, boil up a large quantity of 
water. Measure it carefully, and for each quart of water 
add a small teacupful of salt and a small teacupful of 
vinegar. Boil all well together, and let it get cold' 
Then put some vine-leaves, fennel, tarragon, pimpernel, 
and a few bay -leaves and pepper -corns at the bottom of 
a small barrel or stone jar. Place four layers of cucum- 
ber, one of herbs and leaves, and so on till full. Cover 
the top thickly with leaves, and pour on the salt water 
till the jar is quite full. Put a clean slate over the top 
of the jar, and weight it with a stone. They should 
stand for at least six weeks. 

A Puree of Vegetables. — A pretty dish can be 
made with a puree of any kind of green vegetables sur- 
rounded by macaroni cut into small pieces, boiled plain 
with a little onion in the water, drained, and warmed up 
in a little strong stock (or water) , butter, and a little 
sugar. The New Zealand Spinach or the Spinach Beet 
is sure to be still quite good in the garden. 

A friend of mine who has been much in the East 
makes the following comments on my curry receipt and 
my cooking of rice : ' You say meat in curry is to be cut 
in dice. An old Indian uncle of mine always taught 



44 MORE POT-POURRI 

his cooks to make curries, and there were never better 
curries; and he always said, No dice, but thinnish slices 
about the size of two small mouthfuls. I think he was 
right.' The Indian uncle also said that rice can never 
be really properly cooked except in earthenware vessels. 
I think I agree with both these criticisms. 

Here is a good receipt for those troubled with a 
superabundance of grouse : 

Grouse Salad, — Select fresh salad material. Place 
this in a shallow dish on which has been constructed a 
border of hard-boiled eggs, set off with pieces of 
anchovies and sliced beetroot. 

Sauce. — Two tablespoonfuls of eschalots minced 
small, seven teaspoonfuls of chopped tarragon and 
chervil, five dessertspoonfuls of pounded sugar, the 
yolks of two eggs, five saltspoonfuls of pepper and salt 
mixed, and a very small pinch of cayenne. Mix slowly 
with twelve or thirteen tablespoonfuls of salad oil and 
six dessertspoonfuls of chili vinegar. Add half a pint 
of whipped cream. 

The grouse may be roasted or fried. Build up the 
grouse tastefully in pyramidal form on the greenstuff, 
then pour the sauce over the whole, and serve. 

This receipt for pickled damsons was sent me by one 
of my very kind readers, with a bottle of the same, 
which certainly was quite excellent. 

Pickled Damsons. — Six pounds of damsons, six 
pounds of sugar, two quarts of vinegar, quarter of an 
ounce of cinnamon (stick), quarter of an ounce of 
cloves, one onion (about as large as a nutmeg), half 
tablespoonful of cayenne tied in muslin, and a little 
salt. 

Put all except the damsons into a pan, and boil; then 
pour the liquid over the fruit, and allow the whole to 
remain until the next day, when strain it, putting the 



SEPTEMBER 45 

fruit back into a basin; boil up the liquid, and pour it 
over the fruit again. Let the whole stand for another 
twenty -four hours, and on the third day boil for four 
or five minutes. Strain and press through a sieve, to 
remove the stones and skins. The pickle will then be 
ready to bottle for use. 

Both the following receipts are Belgian. The eight 
stumps of endive make my economical hair stand on 
end, as the curly endive, which is the one intended, is 
a very shy grower in this hot soil, and we blanch it 
rather preciously under boards for November salads. 
But the broad -leaved Batavian endive is very nearly as 
good, only it requires longer cooking. Take eight 
stumps of endive, a good bit of butter (say, the size 
of. two walnuts), a good teaspoonful of flour, half a 
teacupful of milk, and a little salt. Throw away the 
bad leaves, cut the others in small pieces till near the 
stump. Wash several times, so that the sand may sink. 
Let the endive boil in plenty of water with a little salt 
for about an hour; then put it on a sieve to drip out 
well. Make a sauce of the milk, flour, and butter, and 
let it stew for a few minutes. 

Purslane. — The purslane, after being picked and 
washed, is put on a gentle fire to melt, without adding 
any water. When quite soft, add some salt (a very 
little) to taste. If too watery, pour it off; then add 
butter (a rather larger piece than the size of a walnut), 
and carefully mix a well -beaten egg; or, if this does 
not suit the taste, bind it with a little flour. 

Here is an excellent aromatic herb -seasoning which 
does equally well for use with vegetables or meat. I 
found it in an old-fashioned book called ' The Gentle- 
woman, ' published in 1864, which I shall notice again 
further on. The author took this receipt from Fran- 
catelli, the famous cook of the day. Take of nutmegs 



46 MORE POT-POURRI 

one ounce; mace, one ounce; cloves, two ounces; dried 
bay -leaves, one ounce ; basil, three ounces ; marjoram, 
three ounces; winter savoury, two ounces ; thyme, three 
ounces ; cayenne pepper, half an ounce ; grated lemon- 
peel, half an ounce; two cloves of garlic. All to be 
well pulverised in a mortar and sifted through a fine 
wire sieve, and put away in dry corked bottles. We 
made this last year, and used it frequently through 
the winter for flavouring a great many things, such 
as purees of cabbage, preserved French beans, soups, 
sauces, etc. I reduced the cayenne pepper to half the 
prescribed quantity. 

Blackberry Jelly. — Boil the blackberries. Strain 
them and stiffen with isinglass. This keeps splendidly, 
and is not too sweet. 



OCTOBER 

Gardening — Echeverias — Ignorance about bulbs — Gossamer time 
and insects — The East Coast — A new rockery — Oxalis flori- 
bunda as a vegetable — Previous ' Pot-Poit7-ris' — Cooking 
receipts, various— Journey to Frankfort in 1897 — Cronberg — 
Boecklin's Todten-Insel — Jewish Cemetery — Goethe's house — 
Staedal Art Institute — German treatment of tuberculosis. 

October 5th. — The other day I was going round the 
garden, giving away plants, when I came to a bed where 
there were several fine Echeverias. They had been 
planted out to grow naturally into better plants. I 
offered my friend some, but she said, with a shudder: 
'What! those artichoke -looking things? No; thank 
you.' I think the dislike of these plants arises very 
likely from their having been used so much in those 
old-fashioned beds arranged in fancy designs as ugly 
and incongruous as the patterns on a Turkish smok- 
ing -cap. 

These plants are not only kind friends that give little 
trouble, and can be grown in pots and allowed to assume 
their natural growth, but they are also exceedingly 
beautiful. I have an Ucheveria metallica crispa grown 
to a large plant in a pot. It has been perhaps retarded 
in its growth by dryness this summer, and is now 
throwing up a fine pink flower -spike. The whole tone 
of the plant is lovely to a degree, shot with pale pur- 
ples, grays, and pinks, and as full of drawing as the 
cone of an Italian pine. The thick stem is beautifully 
marked by the leaves as they have dried up and fallen 
away. The plant is altogether very picturesque in its 

(47) 



48 MORE POT-POURRI 

quaint growth, and admirably adapted for a room or win- 
dowsill in late autumn, and reminds one of the corner of 
a Dutch picture. The Echeverias and Cotyledons are 
closely allied (natural order Crassulacece) , and there are 
many varieties of these plants, all requiring much the 
same treatment — protection and very little watering in 
winter, but otherwise next to no care. They can be 
increased easily by cuttings at any time, starved and 
re -potted at will, which alters their flowering -time. 
They will grow in china pots, with only a few stones for 
drainage; or will hang out of Japanese vases, suspended 
by wires, containing hardly any earth. A large earth- 
enware pan of the ordinary Echeveria glauca is a very 
pretty sight in summer, and does well in a north win- 
dow. It can be planted with a little peat, charcoal, and 
a few stones. 

I never knew till this year that Marvels of Peru can 
be kept, like Dahlias, free from frost and started the 
following spring, when they make much handsomer 
plants than if grown each year from seed. In gardens 
where you are pressed for room — and where is it 
that you are not ? — it is an excellent plan to make a 
hole in the ground, put some straw at the bottom, 
and lay in Geraniums, Dahlias, Marvels of Peru, and 
many other half-hardy things, cover them with straw, 
and earth up just as you would potatoes or mangolds 
in a field. 

October 10th. — It is extraordinary how vague are 
people's ideas about plants, bulbs, etc.; and it is not till 
one is asked questions that one realises how much most 
people have to learn. I was asked the other day by a 
friend, who had had a lot of Narcissus bulbs given her, 
if she might plant them in a Tea-rose bed ! That is the 
last place where they ought to be put, as, if planted in 
too rich a soil, they all go to leaf and flower badly; and 



OCTOBER 



49 



Roses are the better for being heavily mulched in the 
winter and spring. 

Mr. Robert Sydenham, of Tenby street, Birming- 
ham, publishes a catalogue of bulbs, in which are the 
clearest possible instructions of how to cultivate them, 
both in pots and in the open, with an interesting 
account of his own first experiences. If these instruc- 
tions are carefully followed, I do not believe the disap- 
pointing failures, so often seen when amateurs try to 
force bulbs, will occur. He also makes it quite plain 
which are the bulbs that should be planted in poor 
places and left alone, and those which have to be taken 
up, dried, and re -planted. Tulips, at least in this soil, 
require much better feeding than any of the Narcissus 
tribe, and are certainly the better for taking up and 
drying after their leaves have thorough^ died down. I 
planted my Roman Hyacinths, according to Mr. Syden- 
ham's directions, early in October, and the result was 
more satisfactory than I have ever had before, and they 
were in full flower by Christmas. It is a very pretty 
conceit to plant Hyacinths in shallow earthenware or 
china pans with jadoo, cocoanut fibre or moss, and 
place small stones and charcoal at the bottom for 
the roots to cling to as they grow up. They must 
be kept very wet. Planted in this way they look 
much more decorative in the room than when grown 
in pots or glasses. Any fancy or ornamental vase 
can be used for the purpose, whether it is flat or 
not. Many kind hints have been given me by various 
correspondents about the growing of Hepaticas. One 
lady said that small beds with pieces of sandstone were 
a great help. Another writes as follows : ' I thought 
you might be glad of certain facts about Hepaticas 
that have come under my own observation. When 
a child I lived in Somersetshire, where the soil was 



50 MORE POT-POURRI 

heavy clay. The most beautiful show of Hepaticas I 
ever saw anywhere was a row in an old lady's garden, 
close under a thick hedge of Laurestinus, with a due 
north aspect. They were single -blue and double -pink. 
In the same village there was for many years a large 
clump of double -pink close under a cottage wall with a 
south-east aspect. That also flowered abundantly, so 
for double -pink, at any rate, shade is not essential, 
though I remember that the late James Backhouse told 
me many years ago that the Hepaticas did best and 
flowered earliest with a north aspect, as then they went 
to sleep sooner in the autumn. The wild ones in Swiss 
and French woods are always where they would be 
shaded in summer, and grow with the Primroses. I 
was also unsuccessful with Hepaticas for many years, as 
long as I grew them on the flat, but when I at last tried 
them on the shady side of the rockery, between the 
stones, the blue ones have done well, the plants increas- 
ing in size year by year and flowering abundantly.' I 
found by my letters that a good many people thought 
when I did not mention some plants that I either had 
not got them, or did not care for them, or did not know 
them. The last was sometimes the case, but I have, of 
course, a great many things in the garden, grown in the 
usual way and doing well, which I did not mention. 

October 15th. — I suppose there are still some few peo- 
ple who plant trees for their children or grandchildren, 
although it is rather the fashion to expect gardens and 
woods to be made in a day, and always to be planting 
quick -growing things, Scotch Firs being discarded and 
the ugly -growing Finns austriaca planted in its stead, 
etc. One of the loveliest things I know in this neigh- 
bourhood is a road running through a Beech -tree copse, 
planted thickly but varying in depth on each side of the 
road. The trees when they were young were evidently 



OCTOBER 51 

cut down, as many of them have two or three stems. At 
all times of the year the drive up this chalk slope is 
perfectly enchanting — whether in the autumn, when the 
stems are gray aud green against the leaf -strewn ground, 
rich and golden in the slanting sunlight ; or in spring, 
when the tiny leaves make nickering light and shade ; or 
in the cool thickness on a summer's day. The fact that 
nothing grows under beech -wood gives a very dis- 
tinguished and unusual effect, accustomed as we are to 
the dull walls of evergreens. For the young who wish 
to plant a most unusual approach, I can suggest 
nothing better. 

The planting along the roads and hedgerows of 
England of Apples, Cherries and Damsons, would cost 
no more than any other trees, and would be both orna- 
mental and useful. These three fruit trees, once well 
planted, require no other care. The impression is that 
the fruit would be stolen, but I believe that to be a 
matter of custom, and when once people understand that 
taking fruit is stealing they cease to do it. Growing 
fruit trees in open fields is universal on the Continent, 
and I am told that they are never touched. 

My love of autumn, with its recurring beauty, does not 
dull with age or loneliness, and I am often astonished at 
the interest that is still so keen about all that surrounds 
me. Perhaps it ought not to be so, for I find quoted in 
my notebook the following complaint: 

How much is lost when neither heart nor eye 

Rose-winged desire or fabling hope deceives; 
When boyhood with quick throb has ceased to spy 

The dubious apple in the yellow leaves ; 
When, rising from the turf where youth reposed, 

We find but deserts in the far-sought shore; 
When the huge book of fairy-land lies closed, 

And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more ! 



52 MORE POT-POURRI 

October 16th. — The beautifulgossamer time has come 
again. Most mothers now cultivate in their children a 
love of flowers, but it is astonishing how rarely a love of 
insects is taught. I do not mean a mawkish fear of 
killing them, for very often they have to be killed. I 
remember a boy who was fond, on wet summer days, of 
killing flies on his nursery window. I remonstrated and 
said it was cruel, upon which he answered : ' Why ? 
Father goes out fishing, and brothers go out shooting ; 
why may I not kill flies ? ' The only answer that came 
to my mind was that I could stop the one and I could 
not the other; this remained for ever with him as an 
injustice. But I do think that probably the more chil- 
dren understand and admire, the less they would 
wish wantonly to kill, and at any rate it might do away 
with so much of that groundless dread and uncon- 
trollable nervous fear of insects which stick to some 
people through life. I know some girls who have to 
leave the room if moths — innocent, soft, downy moths! 
— come in, attracted to their doom by the cruel lamp. 
I know others who dare not pick certain flowers for fear 
of an earwig, which from its silly name they believe to 
be really a dangerous enemy. Others, again, will injure 
their health and remain, all through the hot summer 
nights, perhaps in quite a small room, with window and 
door closed, for fear of the inroad of some winged wan- 
derer of the darkness. All this seems to me so silly, so 
ignorant, so unnecessary ! And if children were early 
introduced to the wonders of insect life — ants, bees, 
butterflies, moths, etc. — I think they would fear them 
as little as the ordinary house-fly, which is really more 
objectionable than many of them. I never cared much 
for spiders till I heard a most interesting lecture about 
them, when I longed to know more. The process by 
which they weave their beautiful webs has only been 



OCTOBER 



53 



understood in comparatively recent years. Everyone 
knows now that the gossamer which covers our com- 
mons is spun by spiders. In old days all sorts of fairy 
traditions hung about it, as it was quite unlike the web 
of other spiders. The lecturer said that spiders place 
themselves with their face to the gentle breeze. This 
carries the thin thread they have power to eject, with its 
glutinous end, into the air till it reaches some branch or 
stone or corner of leaf, to which it adheres instantly. 
When this happens, the spider turns quickly round and 
pulls, like any British tar, with his two front claws till 
the fairy rope is tight. Then he fixes it and can travel 
along it, and that is the first stage in the 'weaving, 7 as 
the old language puts it, of his beautiful web. Spiders 
belong to a kingdom ruled by women, and the female 
eats up the male if she finds him troublesome and 
unsatisfactory. There is a very good book about British 
spiders by E. F. Staveley (L. Reeve & Co.), which would 
tell all that anyone might want to know about these 
insects. The first page illustrates spiders' heads, with 
the varying numbers of eyes the different kinds possess. 
'Gleanings in Natural History,' by Edward Jesse, is 
a book I can indeed recommend to all lovers of natural 
history. The first edition is dated ' Hampton Court, 
1842.' For all of us who live near Hampton Court the 
book has a double interest, as he was Surveyor of Her 
Majesty's Parks and Palaces, and lived there, and many 
of his anecdotes are connected with the neighbourhood. 
His opening words are : ' One of the chief objects I had 
in writing the following pages was to portray the 
character of animals, and to endeavour to excite more 
kindly feelings towards them.' It is a kind of half-way 
book between Gilbert White and the scientific writings 
of the present day; and all natural instincts and facts 
are accounted for in what the most ignorant, since the 



54 MORE POT-POURRI 

days of Darwin, would describe as the unscientific 
language belonging to that date. To my mind, that in 
no way detracts from the interest of its shrewd observa- 
tions on the facts of nature. 

To name another book in this place, 'Country Pleas- 
ures : Chronicle of a Year chiefly in a Garden,' by 
George Milner, has been lately republished and thor- 
oughly deserves it, as it is one of the best of its kind, 
and must be an especial favourite with all nature lovers. 
Its charm is of rather a different kind from either of the 
other two. The writing is beautiful, and the quotations 
are pointed, and chosen with literary taste and knowl- 
edge. Here are two sentences which I give in order 
that the charm may be felt. One is dated 'May 22d,' 
for the book is arranged in months, which seems to me 
the only natural system when speaking of the year's 
produce and colour -effects in field, wood, or garden : 

'In the present general outburst of vernal foliage, we 
naturally forget that the evergreens, as well as the 
deciduous trees, are putting forth their new leaves. 
This is one of those lesser beauties of the spring, easily 
overlooked, but full of interest when once observed. 
The yew-tree now shows itself as a mass of leafage, so 
dark as to be. almost black, but wearing a fringe of yel- 
lowish green ; the box has six or seven bright new 
leaves at the end of each spray, in sharp contrast with 
the sombre but polished growth of last year ; the ivy 
buds are silver- gray, like the willow; those of the 
holly are edged with red, and the rhododendron is a 
light green. In that delightfully child -like carol of Kit 
Marlowe, which gave such pleasure to the gentle soul 
of dear old Izaak Walton, the Passionate Shepherd 
promises to his Love 

'A belt of straw and ivy buds, 
With coral clasps and amber studs.' 



OCTOBER 55 

Once every year, in the autumn, and sometimes twice, 
I go to the east coast, and the house is so absolutely 
on the seashore that this description in ' Country 
Pleasures' exactly suits what I feel when I am there. 
It is, I think, so good that it may be an inducement for 
my readers to get the book for themselves : ' It is often 
said that the sea is both monotonous and melancholy, 
but the longer we remain in its close neighbourhood the 
less are we disposed to allow that it is monotonous. 
Melancholy it may be, as it is fierce or wild or lovely by 
turns, but it is not monotonous. Rather it is, next to 
the sky, the most changeful thing we know: and by this 
I do not mean only the obvious motion and restlessness 
of the waves, but the more subtle and ever-varying 
alternation of the whole aspect of the sea. It is usual 
to suppose that these moods are mainly in the mind of 
the observer; but that is not so. The sea, like nature 
generally, has its own absolute conditions — conditions 
which prompt and suggest, rather than follow, emotions 
in the mind of man. To feel all this, however, one 
must live continuously near the sea.' I do not agree 
that this is really necessary in order to appreciate the 
sea. I think one does feel all Mr. Milner describes, even 
if one goes only for a short time, so long as one lives 
close to the shore, no going out of the house being 
necessary in order to see the sea, still less a long walk, 
which means remaining only a few minutes by the 
waves. Mr. Milner continues : ' We are so contiguous 
to the sea here that, looking through the window as I 
write, I can see nothing but the wide stretch of waters, 
just as I should if I were sitting in the cabin of a vessel; 
and if I stand at the door I can fling a stone into the 
fringe of the tide. Crossing the road, one step brings 
me to the shore ; and here you may sit all the day long, 
with the sea breeze blowing round you and the sound of 



56 MORE POT-POURRI 

the water ever in your ears. This sound is usually resolv- 
able into three elements. There is, first, the great boom 
of the waves, the chorus of many waters, far and near, 
heard in one deep unison ; then there is a noise as of 
liquid being poured continuously out of one vessel into 
another — that, I think, is caused by the falling crest of 
the waves ; and lastly, there is a low and lisping talk 
ever going on between the water and the pebbles. 7 I 
call that an excellent word -rendering of sea -sounds. 
Then: ' In the pools and tiny basins there are a thou- 
sand fairy creatures, whose motions you may watch even 
as you lie reposing — green and thread-like tentacula 
issuing and retreating, purple atoms spinning round and 
round in some strange dance which is the beginning and 
end of their existence, gorgeous anemones, and many a 
tiny shell, delicately built and cunningly colored : 

'Slight, to be crush'd with a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand, 

Small, but a work divine; 
Frail, but of force to withstand, 
Year upon year, the shock 
Of cataract seas that snap 

The three-decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock. ' 

In mentioning these books, I mean no slight on any 
that I am not fortunate enough to know. I have kept 
to the same rule which I found necessary with the old 
garden -books — of only naming those that I not only 
know, but possess. 

October 20th. — I have been very busy here hollowing 
out new rockeries and digging deep holes, eight to twelve 
feet deep, and throwing up the sandy earth on either 
side, so making slopes and mounds of earth. Small, 
narrow paths lead into these hollows, and instead of 
catching the water at the bottom, as I did before, I 



OCTOBER 57 

keep the bottom dry, and sink petroleum barrels level 
with the ground to catch the water as it runs down the 
paths when rain falls, or after watering with a hose. In 
the tall walls of sandy earth every sort of aspect is to be 
found, little hollows are made, and all kinds of treasures 
can be planted on the flat or the slope. By making 
holes in the sandy walls, and helping to fix the plants 
with a mixture of cow-dung and clay, they adhere quite 
well on the steep slope. On one side of these sunk 
rockeries, so as still more to keep off the north-east 
wind, there is a wall about four feet in width and four 
feet high, built up gradually with pieces of stone and 
earth between them — no mortar. This makes an excel- 
lent cool depth of soil for many precious plants. A small 
boggy bed can be made, by guiding the rain as it runs 
away into a hole, anywhere by the sides of paths and 
where the earth slopes. This immensely increases the 
effect of rainfall for individual plants, and it is a great 
help to gardening on sandy soils. The fault of my 
rockery, unavoidable from the situation, is that it has 
very little eastern aspect, being shaded in that direction 
by trees; and morning sun is what early Alpines require. 
As the holes approach the large trees, the banks are 
planted with Ferns, various Ivies, Periwinkles (Yinca) , 
and shade -loving plants. Pernettyas, which are lovely 
little shrubs, will not do in sun at all ; but in shade 
they seem to do excellently, and are quite healthy in 
sandy soil. All those I planted in full sun have simply 
died this dry year, having been very much parched up. 
Cotoneaster microphylla, on the contrary, never berries 
so well or is so satisfactory as in a very dry place fully 
exposed to the southern sun. 

The other day, as I was working in this new Alpine 
garden, a caterpillar fell off a tree just in front of me. 
His head was round ; he had a hairy body, plump and 



58 MORE POT-POURRI 

thickest in the middle, covered with moderately abundant 
hairs; and four square -topped bunches of hair of a pale 
yellow colour grew on his back. His head and body 
were green; his long, pointed tail bright pink. The spaces 
between the tufts of hair were deep black. .His legs and 
pro-legs were green. I thought I had got hold of some 
wonderful rare beast, as I had never before found a 
caterpillar with a pink tail like a horn. A friend to 
whom I refer all my natural history questions informed 
me that this was the caterpillar of a moth called the 
'Pale Tussock' because of the tussocks upon his body. 
The moth is pale gray coloured, with various markings, 
and is fairly common. He feeds upon most trees, often 
on Oak, but also on Hazel, Birch, and — oddly enough 
— Hops. He will eat Plum and Pear. 

October 23rd. — I have found that Crocus speciosus 
does admirably in this very light soil, and comes up year 
after j r ear, but is very much better not disturbed, when 
it decidedly increases. Young plants of variegated Maple 
look very pretty planted in clumps in front of a shrub- 
bery, especially if backed by small plants of Prumis 
pissardi. The planting of Rosemary under shrubs, no 
matter what aspect, has answered perfectly, and in this 
way I have a- lot of the delicious stuff, not only to burn 
in my own house, but to give away. 

October 25th. — We have improved on the cultivation 
of watercress in a dry garden by sowing it in a wide 
trench with the sides supported by two old boards, and 
close to a tap, so that it can be easily watered. In 
October some of the plants are dug up, put into a box 
and then placed in a cold frame, so I get fresh water- 
cress for tea through the cold weather. In London it is 
easy to get everything more or less good, but this is not 
at all the case in the country. What you do not grow 
you generally have to do without, and even if watercress 



OCTOBER 59 

can be bought, there is the additional advantage of safety 
in growing it on clean ground instead of buying it out 
of a dirty ditch, when it often tastes of mud. 

I find that in Germany the roots of the pink Oxalis 
floribunda are eaten as a vegetable, and a most excellent 
vegetable it is. It is not quite hardy. The way to treat 
it is to take it up about this time of year, eat the big 
roots, preserve the small ones in sand, and re -plant them 
in the spring. Celeriac and salsifies are also much 
better taken up now and stored in dry sand under cover, 
like carrots. They grow old and spotty if left in the 
ground in the usual English way. 

Before cutting down our asparagus we collect the 
pretty red seeds, sow them at once very thickly in ordi- 
nary or fancy china pots, and keep some for later sowing. 
The seedlings come in well as an ornament in the green- 
house at Christmas, look green and fresh and refined, 
and most people do not know what they are. They have 
the great merit of costing nothing and of being very 
easy to grow for anyone who has a warm greenhouse. 

October 28th. — We are benefiting now by the extra- 
ordinarily dry autumn and no early frost. The number 
of flowers in the garden is quite surprising. I picked 
this morning a large bunch of Nemesia. The Lavenders 
are flowering a second time, and there are plenty 
of Tea Roses. 

The following instructions for growing the Tro- 
pceolum speciosum, which has failed here so often, were 
sent me by a lady : ' The two great needs seem to be 
moisture — but not great moisture — at the roots and 
dampness of atmosphere round the foliage when in 
summer growth. These objects are best obtained by — 
first, in England, or at least in the southern counties, a 
north wall ; second, by being planted about two feet 
deep in a trench properly prepared for it ; third, by fre- 



60 MORE POT-POURRI 

quently syringing in the summer. I have found a 
trench a foot wide and a foot and a half deep suit it 
best. But if the subsoil is clay or a tenacious soil, the 
trench should be made two feet deep, the bottom six 
inches being filled with drainage — pieces of broken 
stones or brick. The soil with which it is next filled 
should be peat and ordinary loam in equal proportions, 
with a little sand and leaf -mould thrown in and thor- 
oughly mixed with the whole. Sphagnum cut and 
chopped into small bits — this retains the moisture, 
which is as essential as that it should not be stagnant. 
The young plants should be put in in the autumn pref- 
erably to the spring. It is important that the soil in 
which the roots are growing should vary as little as 
possible in moistness, never getting dryer at one time 
than at another.' 

The two Japanese grasses, Eulalia Japonica varie- 
gata and zebrina, do not throw up their flower panicles 
here quite early enough to come to perfection, but I 
learnt last summer that if the cane containing the flower 
(this is easily distinguished by feeling a certain fulness 
near the top) is picked and brought into the house, the 
grass will dry ; it should then be peeled off, and the 
feathery panicles will display themselves (see illustra- 
tion in ' English Flower Garden' ) . They make a pretty 
and refined winter decoration, and they are just the 
right size to mix with the red -berried pods of Iris 
fcetidissima. The seed-branches of Montbretias are also 
a pretty addition to a dry winter bouquet. 

Plumbago rosea is a very pretty autumn -flowering 
greenhouse plant. It wants to be grown in a fairly 
warm house ; but, once in flower, a cool greenhouse 
seems to suit it well. Its growth is very different from 
the other Plumbagos, and the pink of its flower is of an 
unusually beautiful hue. It is not difficult to strike. 



OCTOBER 61 

Receipts 

I have two amusing little books by the same author — 
kind of 'Pot Pourris 7 of the early 'sixties — one called 
'Dinners and Dinner Parties' and the other 'The Gen- 
tlewoman.' They are full of good advice and receipts, 
some of which I think are worth copying, but the chief 
amusement is to see how the advice they give has grown 
and spread, and is so much less really wanted than it 
was thirty -five years ago. The anonymous writer is 
extremely sarcastic about the neglect of household duties 
by women of all classes. Now, perhaps, the absorption 
in domestic arrangements and refined luxuries is almost 
carried to the extreme. Most newspapers have menus, 
and the cookery books are innumerable. One paragraph 
in ' The Gentlewoman' is headed, ' The Great Evil in 
England,' and runs as follows : ' The great social evil is 
not that which is talked of by gentlemen in black at 
midnight meetings; but it is the great evil that besets 
the English from the highest to the lowest. Every man, 
woman, and child suffers from it, and thousands die or 
only experience a lingering existence from its neglect. 
The great social evil is the want of persons of education 
and practical knowledge worthy to be entrusted in the 
preparation of food with that care and nicety that is 
practised in every nation in Europe except England, 
whereby health would be no longer jeopardised, and 
twenty millions of money would annually be saved. 
There would be ample employment for every poor lady 
who, for the want of domestic knowledge, is doomed to 
life -long misery.' The writer further complains that 
ladies do not go to market, that young gentlewomen do 
not look after their own wardrobes, and is full of com- 
passion for the poor father who has the task of provid- 
ing a sufficient dowry for each girl. His language must 



62 MORE POT-POURRI 

always have been exaggerated, and it is certainly untrue 
in our day. The ' Stores ' have replaced the old 
markets, and without doubt ladies, and even gentle- 
men, do go to them — tiresome places though they are — 
and the girls of the present day are very few who do not 
look after and think about their clothes. Fathers still 
find the same difficulty in providing dowries for their 
daughters; but the girls themselves — among them those 
who have every right, from the way they have been 
brought up, to look for dowries — are now always striv- 
ing to do some work of their own. The over -strained 
gentility that my author speaks of does still and must 
always exist. He touches on too many subjects for me 
to go on quoting him. But the employments he recom- 
mends for women, laying especial stress on nursing, do 
make one realize the changes and the improvements of 
the last thirty years. All his advice about stores and 
cooking utensils and general management of the kitchen 
is excellent. It is carried out far more in the beautiful 
kitchens of modern Germany than anywhere here. He 
is as strong as even I could wish about the use of earth- 
enware casseroles and fireproof dishes. But both 
servants and mistresses hate them because of the 
breakage, which, of course, is very troublesome ; and 
the excessive heat of our fireplaces makes them more 
difficult to manage. English servants, too, are so con- 
servative that it is extremely difficult to interfere in any 
way with their method of work. They only like to do 
things as they have always been done. 

On looking over these two books, I find the receipts so 
good and so unlike those in the ordinary cookery book 
that I shall copy several of them to disperse through the 
months as they seem to me seasonable. It is often 
difficult to remember how each generation requires to be 
told the same things over again. Among other good 



OCTOBER 63 

and useful hints, one is to keep a supply of corks for 
putting into any bottle that has been opened, so that it 
can be turned over on its head in the store closet and 
thus prevent the air from getting to the contents. This 
ensures your not having to buy a fresh bottle of oil for 
every third salad, or a fresh bottle of anchovy when you 
require only a teaspoonful. I am afraid the modern 
cooks are rare who will take the trouble to attend to 
such details. 

This dressing of two chickens in different ways for 
one dinner party is rather original, so I copy it out of 
4 The Gentlewoman ' just as it is: 

'Two Chickens for Eight Persons.— Abandon the 
boiled fowl fashion; order a pair of fowls to be sent 
without being trussed, and let the heads and necks be 
sent with them. Cut up one of the fowls into pieces — 
the leg and thigh into two pieces, the back into three 
pieces, and the breast into two pieces, which, with the 
merry -thought, will be fourteen pieces. 

' Take a Spanish onion, cut it up small, put it into a 
stewpan with two ounces of butter and a little pepper 
and salt ; let it stew gently for about an hour, until it is 
in a complete pulp. Half an hour before you want it, 
put in the fourteen pieces of chicken, let them stew half 
an hour, and when done put into your silver dish a tea- 
spoonful of Spanish or French garlic vinegar, or, if that 
is not liked, the squeeze of half a lemon, and you will 
never again want to taste insipid boiled fowl. Mind, it 
requires no water ; the fowl will be done in its 
own gravy. 

'Cut the other fowl in the same way; viz., fourteen 
pieces. Let the heads and necks be picked and scalded; 
stew them in half a pint of water, and when all the 
goodness is extracted strain off the liquor, put it into a 
stewpan with a pint of button mushrooms, a little pepper 



64 MOKE POT-POURRI 

and salt, and put in the fourteen pieces of fowl, stew 
them until done (about half an hour), thicken with a 
little arrowroot. When you dish them up, put into 
your silver dish a tablespoonful of mushroom catchup. 
These two fowls will be a variety, will require only the 
effort of serving, will be enough for eight or ten per- 
sons, and each convive will want to taste each dish. 

' Pigeons, when in season, cooked in the same manner 
are equally good, and make a change — such a change 
that those who taste it never forget. Grouse and par- 
tridges treated the same way are better than roasted. 

'A young turkey poult dressed in the same way is a 
very inviting dish.' 

Towards the middle of October I buy two or three 
young turkeys in Suffolk, and feed them here till a fort- 
night before Christmas. They must be starved twenty- 
four hours before killing, and require to hang about a 
fortnight. They should not be plucked or cleaned out 
till they are going to be cooked. 

Chervil Soup. — Pick, wash, and chop fine a very 
large handful of chervil. Melt a piece of butter the size 
of an egg, with two tablespoonfuls of good flour. Stir 
smooth. Do not let it colour at all; then add the chervil, 
and let it simmer ten minutes, stirring well. Pour on it 
sufficient stock or water (water is quite as good as stock, 
in my opinion) to make the soup (rather less than more, 
as one can easily add a drop if too thick) . Let it boil 
half an hour. Just before serving the soup, put the 
yolks of two fresh eggs, one teacupful of milk or cream 
and a bit of sweet butter, well mixed together and 
beaten up, into the soup tureen ; pour the boiling soup 
into this thickening, stirring it well till mixed. The 
same receipt exactly applies to sorrel soup. 

To Dress Fresh-water Fish. — Bone the fish and 
lay it flat in a fireproof dish, with small pieces of butter 



OCTOBER 65 

underneath the fish. Chop half an onion and three or 
four washed anchovies, brown them in a little butter in 
a small copper saucepan; pour this mixture all along 
over the fish. Strew lightly with very dry breadcrumbs 
grated from a brown roll or the crust of a loaf. Add in 
the dish a few spoonfuls of good brown sauce, and baste 
the fish in the oven till cooked. Serve in the fireproof 
dish in which it was cooked. 

In Germany they still use fresh -water fish almost as 
much as they do in France, and obviously for the same 
reasons. A full account of these reasons is most excel- 
lently given in Mrs. Roundell's ' Practical Cookery 
Book, 7 under the head of 'Pond Fish.' Sea fish in 
England is so plentiful that I do not believe, in these 
days of quick carriage, that fresh -water fish will ever 
be again a matter of trade, though even this we cannot 
say for certain. The fishmongers and fishermen are so 
absolutely determined to ruin our fish supply by cover- 
ing it with that injurious chemical, boracic acid, very 
often before it leaves the coast, that I, for one, would 
greatly prefer a freshly netted pond fish. Boracic acid 
can be easily recognised, when the fish is cooked, by the 
purple line that lies along the spine in soles, whiting, 
haddock, plaice, etc. It is introduced under the gill, 
and I fancy with experience one would soon recognise 
it even before the fish is cooked. But the use of it is 
now so universal, alas! that a young cook can hardly be 
expected to know what fish looked like without it. I 
cannot understand why people who possess large places 
with rivers, lakes, ponds, game-keepers, and, in fact? 
every facility for having fresh -water fish, are yet con- 
tent to do without so good a variety of food. 

One reason is that the cooks do not know how to 
cook it properly, and the mistresses of the house do not 
take the trouble to teach them. The Izaak Walton 



66 MORE POT-POURRI 

receipts are very inadequate, and depend almost entirely 
for success on cooking the fish the very moment it is 
taken out of the water. In France, fish that cannot be 
cooked immediately is always marinaded. (See 'Dainty 
Dishes.') Mrs. Roundell entirely does away with the 
terrible superstition that has always haunted my imagi- 
nation as a fact, that eels have to be skinned alive as 
lobsters are boiled alive. She is silent on the subject of 
lobsters, but with regard to eels she distinctly says : 
'Kill them first, and skin them afterwards.' 

Endive (French receipt). — Boil the leaves in lots 
of salt and water, just as if you were doing spinach or 
cabbage. When tender, pour the whole thing on to a 
large sieve, and as soon as the hot water has drained 
away put the sieve under a tap and let cold water run 
on it for some minutes. This applies to the boiling of 
all green vegetables — cabbages, sorrel, cauliflowers, 
cos -lettuce, cabbage -lettuce, etc. After the cold water, 
put the endive on a chopping -board, or, if required to 
be quite smooth as a purSe, rub it through a fine hair 
sieve. In both these cases return it to the fire, after 
having first put, in a china saucepan, a pat of butter to 
dissolve with one spoonful of fine flour. Do not put the 
vegetable in before the butter and flour are well amalga- 
mated. When this is achieved, stir the vegetable well 
up with the butter and flour, and let it simmer for 
another fifteen minutes. Add a little cream or milk 
quite at the last moment, just to make it soft and pretty. 
It must not be thicker than a thin pur4e. 

Endive (in the German way). — Cut up the endive 
quite coarsely, wash it in lots of cold water, and throw 
it, very wet, into an earthenware pot in which a large 
piece of butter has been dissolved; no salt nor anything 
else. Put the lid on, and simmer gently for three or four 
hours. Add salt the last minute, and no flour at all. 



OCTOBER 67 

Canard a la Rouennaise.— Take the fillets of two 
ducks. Put them into a buttered saute-pan, and poach 
for five minutes in a good oven. When done, cut them 
out with a cutlet -cutter, and spread on one side of each 
fillet some liver force-meat, then chaud-froid over with 
some tomato sauce. When set, dish them flat on the 
entree dish with some aspic, some skinned grapes in 
the centre, and a grape here and there. Serve with 
grape salad. 

Puree of Carrots. — Get some nice red carrots; slice 
them thin. Add an onion, also sliced, a little celery, 
and a turnip. Braise all together in some weak stock, 
or water, until quite tender. Pass the whole through a 
tammy or hair sieve. About an hour before serving, 
place it in a stewpan over the fire and let it gently sim- 
mer to clarify. Season with sugar and salt, and work 
in a little cream just before serving. 

Poulet a la Marengo. — Have some nice young 
chickens, cut them up neatly, and put them into a saute- 
pan with a little salad oil, one onion, a small piece of 
parsley, and thyme; season with pepper and salt, cover 
the saute-pan with the lid, and boil till sufficiently 
browned. Then add some good brown stock, and stew 
for some time, finish with a good glass of madeira 
(optional). Dish up with fried eggs round. Fry the 
eggs in salad oil. 

Chestnuts au Jus. — Remove the outer skin and 
throw the chestnuts into boiling water, to enable you 
to remove the inner skin as well; then lay them in cold 
water while the following mixture is prepared: Stir two 
tablespoonfuls of sugar into an ounce of butter, in a 
sauce -pan, till the sugar is browned, let it boil up, add 
a little cold water. Put in the chestnuts, simmer till 
tender, but do not shake them (to avoid crumbling). 
Just before serving, add a few spoonfuls of very good 



68 MORE POT-POURRI 

strong glaze. Onions, small turnips, and oxalises can 
be done in the same way. We find all these equally- 
good without the meat glaze. 

Celeriac Salad. — A most excellent autumn salad is 
celeriac well boiled, cut in slices like beetroot, mixed 
with a light mayonnaise sauce, half oil and half cream, 
surrounded by a wreath of what they call in Germany 
'garden -cress/ which is merely the cress we grow in 
spring in a box, allowed to grow out of doors in summer 
till about the size of parsley. It grows all the summer 
through in the garden, and can be cut over and over 
again. When grown in boxes in the winter, it should be 
allowed to grow on, instead of cutting it quite young. 

I have always considered salads a strong point with 
me, and was much amused the other day, when reading 
Sydney Smith's 'Memoirs' by his daughter, at the fol- 
lowing description of his experiences with salads. I 
think his receipt so clever that I have extracted it, with 
the feeling that it was better to have it in two books 
than in only one,, so that it may give pleasure to more 
people. He says: ' Our forte in the culinary line is our 
salad. I pique myself on our salads. Saba always 
dresses them after my recipe. I have put it into verse. 
Taste it, and if you like it I will give it to you. I was 
not aware how much it had contributed to my reputa- 
tion till I met Lady , at Bowood, who begged to be 

introduced tome, saying she had so long wished to know 
me. I was, of course, highly flattered, till she added : 
"For, Mr. Smith, I have heard so much of your recipe 
for salads that I was most anxious to obtain it from 
you." Such and so various are the sources of fame ! 

' To make this condiment your poet begs 
The pounded yellow of two hard- boil 'd eggs; 
Two boil'd potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve, 
Smoothness and softness to the salad give. 



OCTOBER 69 

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl 

And, half- suspected, animate the whole. 

Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, 

Distrust the condiment that bites so soon; 

But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault 

To add a double quantity of salt. 

Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca brown, 

And twice with vinegar procured from town ; 

And, lastly, o'er the flavoured compound toss 

A magic soupcon of anchovy sauce. 

Oh, green and glorious! Oh, herbaceous treat! 

'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat; 

Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, 

And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl ! 

Serenely full, the epicure would say, 

"Pate cannot harm me — I have dined to-day." ' 

Fried (German) Pudding". — To make the batter 
put two pints of milk to boil, with a tiny pinch of salt 
and two ounces of butter. When boiling, stir in very 
smoothly eight ounces of finest Hungarian flour. (Use 
no other flour than Hungarian or Austrian for all sweets 
and sauces.) Stir till the batter recedes from the sides 
of the stewpan, then pour it into a dish to get cold. 
Add six eggs and two spoonfuls of rum ; mix gently. 
Put a deep iron pan full of frying -fat on the fire, but 
let it get only moderately hot. Fry the batter in round 
balls in the following way : To make this very German 
pudding properly, one should have a large tin syringe, 
made specially for the purpose, but in its absence the 
batter must be taken up by small teaspoonfuls and 
dropped into the frying -fat. It will form round balls, 
which should be constantly moved about with a spoon 
to get them golden -coloured all over. When they show 
little cracks they are sufficiently done. For this method 
the batter should be made a little stiffer than for the 
syringe by adding a little more flour. Serve with dis- 
solved fruit syrup or custard. 



7 o MORE POT-POURRI 

Gateau Savarin. — Ingredients : A little less than 
one pint of milk, six ounces of butter, ten eggs, two 
ounces of pounded sugar, one pound of good Hungarian 
flour, sifted, grated peel of two lemons, two ounces of 
good German yeast, a pinch of salt. Put one-fifth part 
of the flour, the yeast, and the milk together in a deep 
basin, and work them to a stiff paste ; cover with a 
cloth, and stand in a tepid place till it swells to double 
its size. Put all the other ingredients into a much 
larger basin, mix them very vigorously and thoroughly 
with the hands for ten minutes, then work into this the 
first paste with the yeast in it. When all is well incor- 
porated, work it for another fifteen minutes. Fill the 
tin or earthenware Savarin shapes with paste to one- 
third of their height, having first greased them well 
inside with melted butter. Stand them in a warm place 
till the paste has risen to the very top. Put them in a 
rather slow oven for twenty-five to thirty minutes. When 
well coloured, but not brown, turn them out and pour 
rum punch over them, taking care not to sodden them. 

I had occasion, at the end of this month last year 
(1897), to go to Germany, to the neighbourhood of 
Frankfort. The journey, about twenty -five hours from 
London, is wonderfully easy. My friends said : 'What ! 
go all that way for ten days ? ' But, in fact, it means 
far less time and money than did a journey to Devon- 
shire, or even the Isle of Wight, to our grandmothers. 
I had never seen the Rhine before in late autumn. The 
late vintage was just over, and the vines and the earth 
seemed one even brown, diversified at times with yellow 
leaves hanging thinly on the poplars and the low oak 
brushwood bronze and gold against the sky. It seems 
bathos to say so, but the Rhine runs so due north and 
south that it reminded me of my winter walks in Sloane 



OCTOBER 71 

street. The sun was always in one's eyes in the middle 
of the day, and behind the hills morning and evening; 
and the fogs hung about the river as they do between 
the houses in the street. How entirely the Rhine of 
Turner and Byron has ceased to be ! All the beautiful, 
picturesque boats, barges, rafts, etc., with white or tan 
sails, that trailed their long reflections in the broad 
river, representing the commercial industries of the 
people, which had been growing from the commence- 
ment of history — all this has completely disappeared. 
On the main, I saw one or two of the old-fashioned large 
rafts, not towed by steamers, but punted by the graceful 
little black figures, ceaselessly labouring up and down 
a small portion of the raft and pushing it with long 
poles. On the Rhine, everything was towed by steamers 
of various sizes and kinds. As I sped along in the 
luxurious railway carriage, and noticed the road beside 
the river turning and twisting along the bank, I could 
not but think of the changes since the days when all 
travelling was done by carriages and lumbering dili- 
gences. In Moore's 'Life of Byron,' which I used to 
think such a delightful book, but which now is some- 
what sneered at as unfair book -making by Byron 
biographers, there is a detailed account of the way the 
rich and great journeyed at the beginning of the cen- 
tury : ' Lord Byron travelled in a huge coach copied 
from the celebrated one of Napoleon, taken at Genappe, 
with additions. Besides a lit de repos, it contained a 
library, a plate chest, and every apparatus for dining in 
it. It was not, however, found sufficiently capacious for 
his baggage and suite, and he purchased a caUche at 
Brussels for his servants.' So travelled the man whom 
Lady Caroline Lamb attempts to describe, in her famous 
though dull novel of 'Glenavon,' with the motto: 

He left a name to all succeeding times 
Link'd with one virtue and a thousand crimes. 



72 MORE POT-POURRI 

The train sped along, and the weather was beautiful. 
We were not parboiled in the carriages, as they do not 
warm them before the 1st of November. My friend 
lived out of Frankfort, on the slopes of the Taunus 
Mountains, under the towers of the mediaeval Castle of 
Cronberg. Land is not, I fancy, to be bought in Ger- 
many except close to the towns ; all the forests belong 
to the State, and are not sold. I was surprised to find 
in this delightful home of my Cronberg friends, in the 
very kingdom of stoves, as we consider Germany, that 
one of the rooms was warmed by an Irish stove, made 
by Messrs. Musgrave, of Bond street, exactly like the 
one I find so invaluable for keeping my own little house 
at an even temperature. I cannot imagine why any 
English house not warmed with hot pipes is ever 
without one of these stoves. They burn only coke, they 
require very little stoking, they keep in a very long 
time, and they never unpleasantly dry the air or cause 
the least smell. I afterwards found that the shops in 
Frankfort were full of English goods. This is some 
consolation for us when things we buy are so constantly 
marked ' made in Germany' . 

My bedroom at Cronberg looked north, and faced a 
long line of sunlit Taunus Mountains, clothed with oak 
woods in all their autumn glory. They were intersected 
with pine woods, which in previous months must have 
looked dull and dark against the summer green, but in 
late October they were shining bright against the red 
gold of the dying woods. They reminded me of one of 
1 Bethia Hardacre's' truest touches of colour : 

Silver and pearl-white sky, 

Hills of dim amethyst, 
Bracken to gold changed by 

Autumn, the Alchemist. 



OCTOBER 73 

Spikes of bright yellow poplars here and there marked 
the road as it wound np the hill, to lose itself in the 
silent forest. The walls of my bedroom were hung 
round with photographs and prints, remembrances 
brought back by my cosmopolitan hostess from various 
countries. They were most of them known to me, but 
one print was quite a stranger and very striking. It was 
of a picture, I was told, by a Swiss artist called Arnold 
Boecklin, a celebrated man, though unknown to me. On 
the white margin of the print were written the simple 
words : Todten-Insel. The print represents an imag- 
inary burial-place : A high, rocky island, with a 
suggestion of big caves in the rock and windows made 
by man. In the middle a little open space, with tall, 
upright groups of splendid Italian cypresses, which seem 
to be mournfully swaying in the wind. Down the rocks 
on each side tumble somewhat conventional waterfalls 
into a fathomless ocean, perhaps meant to be typical 
of life and death. Two white stone posts on each side 
of a step mark the entrance to this sombre garden of 
peace and rest. On the foreground of calm water floats 
a black boat, which approaches this entrance rowed by 
a solitary dark figure — a realistic Charon. Across the 
front of the boat lies the dead ; and a radiant, draped, 
mysterious mourner, with head bowed over the inevi- 
table sorrow of mankind, stands erect in the middle of 
the boat. The combination of the horizontal dead 
figure and the upright mourner, in their white draperies, 
seems to form a shining cross against the deep shade of 
the cypresses. This print fascinated me, with its eternal 
facts transcribed into an allegory by a man of genius. 
The picture from which it is taken is a replica, with 
many alterations, of one painted some years ago which 
I have seen. But, judging from the print, I believe 
that the last -painted one is the finest. Certainly the 



74 MORE POT-POURRI 

allegorical details in this later one are brought out with 
greater distinctness. Several of Herr Boecklin's pic- 
tures have been bought by his native town of Bale, 
and, later on, I will describe how I spent a night there 
on purpose to see them. After my return home I came 
across an interesting description of Herr Boecklin and 
his work, in a lately published book called ' The History 
of Modern Painting,' by Richard Muther, from which 
the following extract will perhaps make others wish as 
much as I do to see his pictures. Mr. Muther says of 
him that : ' He belonged to the very time when Richard 
Wagner lured the colours of sound from music with a 
glow and light such as no master had kindled before 
Boecklin's symphonies of colour streamed forth like a 
crashing orchestra. The whole scale, from the most 
sombre depth to the most chromatic light, was at his 
command. In his pictures of spring the colour laughs, 
rejoices, and exults. In the "Isle of the Dead," it 
seems as though a veil of crepe were spread over the 
sea, the sky, and the trees Many of his pic- 
tures have such an ensnaring brilliancy that the eye is 
never weary of feasting upon their floating splendour. 
Indeed, later generations will probably do him honour 
as the greatest colour -poet of the century, and, at the 
same time, they will learn from his works that at the 
close of this same unstable century there were complete 
and healthy human beings. . . . The more modern 
sentiment became emancipated, the more did artists 
venture to feel with their own nerves and not with those 
of earlier generations, and the more it became evident 
that modern sentiment is almost always disordered, 
recklessly despairing, unbelieving, and weary of life. 
Boecklin, the most modern of modern painters, possesses 
that quality of iron health of which modernity knows 
so little.' 



OCTOBER 



75 



To return to my time in Germany. The weather 
grew cold and foggy , and my expeditions from Cronberg 
into Frankfort were fewer than I could have wished, 
and many sights I did not see at all. 

Among the towns of which I have an early, though 
faint, recollection, not even Paris itself is more utterly 
and entirely changed than Frankfort. Only here and 
there does anything remain that recalls Goethe's descrip- 
tion, so familiar to the readers of his ever -enchanting 
autobiography, that perfect mixture, ' Truth and Poetry.' 
The Jewish cemetery, full of interest with its unbroken 
record from the twelfth century, I did not see, though to 
my mind it must be one of the most interesting spots in 
Europe. This feeling would only be understood by the 
English, the awful hatred of the Jews — universal on 
the Continent — being happily unknown to us. The 
world changes so much, and yet so much remains the 
same. Who would have imagined that at the end of the 
nineteenth century Jewish persecution would be the 
same as in the Middle Ages ? If it were possible, would 
not the gates of the Ghetto be shut in the same cruel 
and unjust way as years ago ? Hatred of the Jews 
seems to me the one real bond that unites France, 
Germany, and Russia. It is generally attributed to 
Disraeli, but I believe it was Heine who first said : 
1 Every nation has the kind of Jew it deserves.' 

I am' told that in this Jewish cemetery at Frankfort 
the surnames on the tombstones date back in many cases 
three hundred years. The old graves have generally 
only a first name (one cannot say Christian name), with 
a locality, mentioned ; as, for instance, ' Hannah of 
Hamburg.' The Jews seem to regard this cemetery as 
an even truer record of their families than we consider 
our peerage. The Judengasse has virtually disappeared. 
I never saw it but once in my childhood, when I felt the 



76 MORE POT-POURRI 

same kind of mixed awe and curiosity with which 
Goethe speaks of it. There is a sketch of it in that 
never-to-be-forgotten volume of our young days, 'The 
Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones, and Robinson,' 
by Dickie Doyle. His drawing gives a somewhat spiteful 
version of it, but it is a funny remembrance of this 
swept -away quarter. Lewes says Goethe learnt much 
from the society of the Jews in the strange, old, filthy, 
but deeply interesting Jadengasse. Like him, we have 
all pondered over ' the sun standing still on Gideon and 
the moon in the valley of Ajalon.' 

It was with a genuine thrill that I entered Goethe's 
house, where he was born, where he lived, where he 
played and ate and slept and loved Gretchen, and which 
— angry and disappointed at being described as the boy 
he really was — he left, with the indifference usual at 
that age, to seek his fortunes in the world. As he says 
himself : 'At certain epochs children part from parents, 
servants from masters, proteges from their patrons ; and 
whether it succeed or not, such an attempt to stand on 
one's own feet, to make one's self independent, to live 
for one's self, is always in accordance with the will 
of nature.' 

I am so. fond of Goethe's sayings that they stick 
somehow in my mind, in spite of my bad memory. He 
says somewhere so truly, and it refers to this entrance 
into life that all have to face : ' Every man has his 
decoy, and every man is led or misled in a way peculiar 
to himself.' How frequently Goethe's sayings remind 
one of Lord John Russell's apt definition of a proverb, 
'One man's wit and all men's wisdom! ' Goethe's house 
in the Hirschgraben is now a museum, bought by the 
Goethe Society, whose headquarters are at Weimar, and 
restored by them with reverent care. Every effort is 
made to preserve it and what it contains from decay. 



OCTOBER 77 

Such guardians are necessary ; they hold the hand of 
the destroyer and arrest decay, keeping for posterity 
what we ourselves highty value. The old house where 
Luther rested for the night on his way to the Diet of 
Worms was being levelled to the ground this summer 
before my eyes, to make room for a handsome entrance 
into the courtyard of a large white stucco house. So 
incongruous was this building to the old sixteenth- 
century street that had I seen it suddenly I should have 
said it was a residence, not in Frankfort, but in the 
Quartier St. Germain in Paris. I honour all societies 
that save us from this wholesale destruction of the past. 
In the Goethe house-museum there were some of 
Goethe's drawings, which made me sympathise more 
than I had ever done before with Lewes' somewhat 
bitter reproaches about the time Goethe wasted on 
drawing. Lewes says : 'All his study and all his prac- 
tice were vain ; he never attained even the excellence of 
an amateur. To think of a Goethe thus obstinately 
cultivating a branch of art for which he had no talent 
makes us look with kinder appreciation on the spectacle, 
so frequently presented, of really able men obstinately 
devoting themselves to produce poetry no cultivated man 
can read ; men whose culture and insight are insufficient 
to make them perceive in themselves the difference be- 
tween aspiration and inspiration.' 

I also went alone to the suburb of Sachsenhausen 
to see the Staedel Art Institute. Frederick' Staedel, in 
1816, bequeathed his pictures and engravings and 
100,000?. to his native town. This formed the nucleus 
of the present gallery. Many pictures have been added 
since his death, and in many ways the collection is an 
interesting one. I stood long before a picture which 
the inscription on the frame told me had been presented 
by a Baroness Rothschild. Having no catalogue, and 



78 MORE POT-POURRI 

feeling shy about asking in German, I neither knew nor 
guessed what it was or why it was there. It powerfully 
arrested my attention — a life-sized picture of a man of 
about forty, sitting in a gray, flowing overcoat, on gray 
stones in the gray Campagna of Rome. Afterwards I 
was told that it was the famous picture of Goethe by 
Johann Friedrich Tischbein. This painter lived from 
1750 to 1812 —that is to say, only a part of the life of 
Goethe, who was born a year before Tischbein and died 
in 1832. He, therefore, was thirty -seven when he wrote 
in the letters from Italy, December, 1786, as follows : 
' Latterly I have often observed Tischbein attentively 
regarding me ; and now it appears he has long cherished 
the idea of painting my portrait. His design is already 
settled and the canvas stretched. I am to be drawn the 
size of life, enveloped in a white mantle, and sitting on 
a fallen obelisk, viewing the ruins of the Campagna di 
Roma, which are to fill up the background of the 
picture. It will form a beautiful piece, only it will be 
rather too large for our northern habitations. I indeed 
may crawl into them, but the portrait will never be 
able to enter their door.' 

This is the exact description of the picture as it now 
is. Later -on, in the letters in February of the following 
year, Goethe again alludes to the picture : 4 The great 
portrait of myself which Tischbein had taken in hand 
begins already to stand out from the canvas. The 
painter has employed a clever statuary to make him a 
little model in clay, which is elegantly draped with the 
mantle. With this he is working away diligently.' The 
last fact is curious, as it is exactly the way Meissonier 
worked a hundred years after. I went to his studio 
shortly after his death, and saw all his little clay models 
of cannons, figures, horses, roads, from which all his 
highly finished pictures were painted. The Goethe por- 



OCTOBER 79 

trait has a distinct dash of affectation in it, and the 
whole pose, excusable enough in Goethe, is of a man in 
the prime of his life who felt himself to be famous and 
knew himself to be handsome. To our ideas, the pic- 
ture is singularly devoid of colour, almost monochrome; 
but it strikes one as very modern in treatment, consider- 
ing its date, and for every reason it must always remain 
one of the interesting portraits of the world. In the 
early part of this century and during the Napoleonic 
days, when the Rothschilds of Frankfort began to spread 
themselves through Europe and establish their banking- 
houses in so many capitals, the son who went to Naples 
bought this great canvas of Tischbein's. In this way it 
has ultimately found a most fitting home — not in the 
small house which, Goethe truly said, would not admit 
it, but on the walls of this museum in his native town. 

The Staedel Institute has many artistically interest- 
ing pictures, most instructive to the student of the old 
masters, both German and Italian. For those who wish 
to understand modern criticism and the altering of long- 
accepted catalogues attributing pictures to wrong artists, 
I can most strongly recommend 'Italian Painters,' by 
Giovanni Morelli (John Murray) , translated into English 
by Constance Jocelyn Ffoulkes. Giovanni Morelli lived 
at Bergamo in Lombardy. He left as a legacy to his 
native town a small, but very remarkable, collection of 
pictures, the chief treasures of which are Dutch master- 
pieces. I imagine the 'Italian Painters' is almost the 
root of the kind of modern criticism which has torn 
from us of the older generation many of the faiths of 
our youth. For instance, the famous Guido's ' Cenci' of 
the Barberini Palace for more than a century drew tears 
of pity from the eyes of poets and their followers as 
being a most tender representation of a famous criminal 
painted in prison, who, but for this supposed portrait of 



80 MORE POT-POURRI 

her, would never have been known to posterity. As a 
fact, she was executed six or seven years before Guido 
arrived in Rome. Neither is the picture a Guido at all, 
but a study by some inferior painter of an unknown 
model. At least, this, I believe, is the last word on the 
subject. The favourite portrait of Raphael by himself 
in the Louvre, leaning on his hand, is not a portrait of 
him, nor is the picture painted by him. The great Hol- 
bein at Dresden is said now not to be the original, which 
is at Darmstadt ; and so on . In this Frankfort gallery 
there is an extraordinarily fine and interesting female 
portrait, hitherto attributed to Sebastiano del Piombo, 
but now supposed to be by Sodoma. It is one of the 
gems of the collection. 

Before leaving England last year (1897), I had been 
immensely interested at hearing of the open-air treat- 
ment for phthisis as practised in Germany, the parent 
establishment of which is at Falkenstein, in the Taunus 
Mountains, close to Cronberg, where I was staying. I 
wished very much to visit this sanatorium myself, but 
circumstances rendered it impossible. 

A good account of it was published just after I came 
home, in the ' Practitioner ' for November, by Dr. Karl 
Hess, senior physician to the establishment. 

It cannot fail to strike us as we walk or drive past 
the Brompton hospital, with its airless situation and its 
closed windows, how hopelessly different its conditions 
and treatment must be from those recommended — and 
apparently so successfully carried out — at Falkenstein. 
In Germany twenty sister establishments have been 
started, and the medical management is supposed to 
be now so complete against infection that German 
parents have no fear of sending delicate children to 
these cures, at the age of sixteen or seventeen, to be 
benefited by the outdoor treatment as a strengthener 



OCTOBER 81 

against the possibility of their catching tuberculosis. 
At Falkenstein, the parent institution, much meat is 
insisted on; but I am told that at Nordrach Dr. Walther 
now gives very little meat, and sends away patients if 
they take any stimulant at all. He does cram them, but 
it is with enormous quantities of milk, cheese, butter, 
brown bread, and other farinaceous foods. 

When I came home from Germany last year I noted 
three things which I hold to be of the utmost impor- 
tance, and in which we seemed in England to be decid- 
edly behind other nations. First, I wished to see estab- 
lished public slaughterhouses, duly inspected, not only 
in large towns, but in every village where beasts are 
slaughtered. It seems to me absurd to expect that the 
man who buys a beast, kills it himself, and counts on 
selling the meat at a profit, should forego his gains 
solely for the public good. Meat is constantly eaten 
which is rejected by the Jewish priests, and I believe it 
is a statistically established fact that Jews have a great 
immunity from both consumption and cancer. It used 
to be supposed that this was because they were of a dif- 
ferent race from ourselves. I believe it is because they 
are much cleaner feeders than we are. 

Secondly, I would gladly have seen greater intelli- 
gence and knowledge on the part of the public as re- 
gards the danger to children and invalids who live 
almost exclusively on milk of drinking it unsterilised 
or unboiled, since one tuberculous cow infects the whole 
supply, and this is not possible to detect by any analysis 
of the milk. 

Thirdly, I wished that the German rational outdoor 
treatment of consumptive patients, when once they have 
caught tuberculosis, or are so constituted that they are 
likely to catch it, should be understood and practised in 
England. 



82 MORE POT-POURRI 

The strides that have been made towards the accom- 
plishment of these three wishes of mine during the last 
year is simply astonishing. The newly formed National 
Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, whose 
office is in Hanover Square, has for its great object to 
instruct people on the infectiousness of tuberculosis and 
the best methods of arresting it. Everyone who read 
the account of the first meeting of this society at Marl- 
borough House must have been struck with the fact that 
when the Queen's herd of cows were tested, thirty -six of 
them were condemned to be slaughtered. 

A century ago, when first invalids were sent to the 
Riviera and Madeira, all the doctors distinctly taught 
that the disease was hereditary, and not infectious. The 
natives of these health resorts soon discovered, to their 
cost, that the disease was infectious ; for it spread 
amongst the population in the same way as it now has 
at Davos, where tuberculosis was formerly unknown. 
The superstition, as the doctors of the 'forties thought 
it, of the peasants round Nice — who held that consump- 
tion was really catching — made such an impression on 
my mother, whose whole soul was bent on saving her 
children from the disease of which their father died, 
that she brought us up on the lines of that belief, and 
kept us from every one whom she in any way suspected 
of being consumptive, even when their complaint may 
have been but a constitutional cough. 

Perhaps this training is what has made me somewhat 
sceptical about the medical science of any day being 
absolutely conclusive. I sometimes think that the im- 
plicit faith that people are apt to place in doctors may 
be injurious to the community, and that experience and 
quackery sometimes turn out to be scientifically truer 
than the medical theory of the hour. Shocking as many 
will think the suggestion, I believe this may eventually 



OCTOBER 83 

prove to be the case even with regard to vaccination as 
a necessary preventive against small - pox epidemics, 
the great decrease of which may have been effected by 
many other circumstances. The itch, scurvy, and leprosy 
have practically also disappeared in England with im- 
proved food and cleanliness. Nowadays, why should not 
a case of small-pox be stamped out as the plague was this 
year in Vienna ? Before Jen ner's great discovery, even 
the most primitive methods of preventing infection were 
unknown . It is only within the last twenty years that these 
have been brought to anything like perfection, and only 
in the last ten years with regard to crowded localities. 

To return to tuberculosis. In spite of TyndalPs 
wonderfully clear, instructive, and interesting letters to 
the ' Times,' published more than twenty years ago, and 
which explained most thoroughly the infectiousness of 
consumption, the public have remained curiously ignorant 
on the subject. As an illustration of this, a sad case 
occurred this year not far from here. A signalman who 
was mortally ill of consumption remained at his work, in 
his signal-box on the line, as long as it was possible for 
him to get there. When the day came that he had to 
give in and remain at home to die, a young and healthy 
man replaced him in the signal-box, which had in no 
way been disinfected or whitewashed, and which, from its 
construction, was a sun -trap and the best dust-and- 
germ- producer that could be. A cattle-truck would 
have been differently treated ! The young man caught 
the disease, and died in a few months. 

I find, in talking even to educated people, a consider- 
able tone of resentment on this subject. ' What ! ' they 
say, 'are our consumptives to be treated like lepers?' 
The poetry that hung about consumption in the early 
days of this sentimental century, its association with the 
South, with Madeira's orange groves and the sunshine 



84 MORE POT-POURRI 

of the Mediterranean, is now not easy to eradicate. The 
modern cure is stern, rough, and unattractive, and it is 
difficult at first to believe it to be the best for the hard, 
hacking cough and hectic flush of the patients. 

The homeward journey from Germany was much 
less pleasant than my journey out had been, in conse- 
quence of the fatal date having come which decides 
that German railway carriages shall be heated — or, as 
we English think, over -heated. This causes considerable 
suffering to those who stupidty, like myself, forget that 
an almost summer dress is required, with plenty of 
wraps to prevent any chill on leaving the carriage. We 
passed Coblentz at early winter sunset -time, and I never 
saw anything more beautiful than all the tones of blues 
and pearly grays under a sky spread with wave upon 
wave of bright pink clouds. Not Turner himself could 
have come near to the delicate yet brilliant effect. Skies 
are fleeting enough, and the waves of rosy clouds quickly 
disappear, but the despairing swiftness of an express 
train is the quickest of all ; and in a moment Coblentz, 
with its towers, its fortress, and its beautiful sunlit 
sky, was out of sight. 

I do think that if we would enjoy the Rhine in its 
beauty we "must visit it in winter, when we see it as 
Turner saw it. What a pleasure it is now to go to those 
rooms on the ground floor of the National Gallery where 
Turner's sketches are ! I went there again the other 
day to see the Rhine of one's youth. What a king and 
creator of Impressionist sketching was Turner in his 
later manner ! He lifted the hilltops till they grew pink 
in the setting sun, and he trailed the long reflections to 
fathomless depths in the broad river. And was not the 
fortress defiantly impregnable in those days, and so 
rendered by him in those two wonderful pink and yellow 
and blue Ehrenbreitstein sketches ? How quickly and 



OCTOBER 85 

easily all his effects and gradations are produced ! If 
they were not consummate, we should now call them 
cheap. I had not seen these rooms in the National 
Gallery for some years. They are beautifully arranged 
— so warm, so' light, and, alas! so empty. At least, 
when I was there I wandered alone. How true it is that 
what we can have always we care for so little, and how 
we toil as tourists in foreign towns! 

It seems rather ridiculous to have brought back from 
Germany a French poem. But I heard there, for the 
first time, one of Tosti's earlier songs, the words of 
which seemed to me sympathetic and full of charm. 
They are written by a Comtesse de Castellane, and, as 
they are very little known apart from the music, I quote 
them here for the benefit of the non-singing world — 
which, after all, is rather a large one: 

VOUS ET MOI 

Vos yeux sereins et purs ont voulu me sourire, 
Votre main comme une aile a earesse ma main, 

Mais je ne sais trouver, helas! riena vous dire, 
Car nous ne marchons pas dans le meme chemin. 

Vous etes le soleil d'un beau jour qui commence, 
Et moi la nuit profonde et l'horizon couvert; 

Vous etes fleur, 6toile, et joyeuse cadence, 

Vous etes le printemps, et moi je suis l'hiver! 

Vous buvez les rayons et respirez les roses, 
Car vous etes l'aurore, et moi la fin du jour 1 ; 

II faut nous dire adieu sans en chercher les causes, 
Car je suis le regret, et vous etes l'amour. 

There are few acts, in my opinion, so blamable and 
so selfish as an old man marrying a young girl. He 
understands life and she does not, and the responsibility 
rests with him. Of course this does not apply to a 
woman past thirty who wants a home. 



NOVEMBER 

Present of ' The Botanist ' — Echeveria and Euphorbia splendens — 
Cowper on greenhouses — Cultivation of greenhouse plants — 
Bookseller at Frankfort — Dr. Wallace on Lilies — Receipts — 
"Winter in the country — The sorting of old letters. 

November 1st. — One of those most pleasant echoes of 
my first book came to me to-day. I received a letter, 
addressed to the care of my publisher, from a lady who 
was so pleased with my commendation of her father's 
work ('The Botanic Garden,' by B. Maund) that she 
kindly asked to be allowed to send me, what I had long 
wished to have, the five volumes of his second book, 
' The Botanist ' — a gardening periodical which was 
published only for five years, as the coloured illustra- 
tions were too costly to be continued. The first number 
was issued in January, 1825. It contains full -page 
illustrations of stove, greenhouse, and new hardy plants 
— new, that is, in 1825. I have had it bound, and it is 
a great addition to my collection of flower -books. The 
original drawings were chiefly made by Mrs. Withers, 
who was the first flower -painter of that day. The title- 
page bears the following inscription : 

The Botanist : containing Accurately Coloured 
Figures of Tender and Hardy Ornamental Plants, 
with Descriptions Scientific and Popular, intended to 
convey both Moral and Intellectual Gratification.' A 
quotation is added from Sir J. E. Smith: 'The world 
seems to have discovered that nothing about which 
Infinite Wisdom has deigned to employ itself can, prop- 
erly speaking, be unworthy of any of its creatures, how 

(86), 



NOVEMBER 87 

lofty soever their pursuits and pretensions may be.' 
The flowers are beautifully drawn and delicately col- 
oured, one on a page — not on the same principle as 
'The Botanic Garden.' But it is as full as that is of 
interesting information, not the least, perhaps, being 
the derivation of the names of plants, some of which we 
use every day. For in stance, ' Echeveria ' is derived 
from M. Echever, a botanical painter. 

Euphorbia splendens is an interesting and effective 
stove -plant. It is a native of Madagascar, and the 
name it bears in its own country is ' Soongo-Soongo.' 
It is among the plants one need not fear to buy, as 
cuttings strike easily under a hand-glass. I mention 
it, as I bought it last year at a sale not knowing what 
it was. Oxalis Bowiei I also have, and try to grow it 
out of doors in a very sheltered place. Like most of the 
finer Oxalises, it is a native of the Cape. I was not 
here, as I have said, in the summer this year; but when 
I returned, it looked very dried up and unsatisfactory. 
This is what "William Herbert, the author of 'Amaryl- 
lidacea,' before mentioned, says of its cultivation: 'This 
most beautiful and florid plant is hardy' (where mine 
came from it had been out of doors for years) ' and in 
the open ground will flower in the autumn.' (I expect 
a bell-glass would greatly help this.) ' But it blossoms 
most profusely when kept in a pot under glass, espe- 
cially if, after a short period of rest at midsummer, it is 
placed in a stove or warm greenhouse for a very short 
time to make it start freely. Its flowers expand in very 
moderate temperature. Like all the Oxalises, the 
flowers are very sensible to light, and only expand 
thoroughly when the strong, clear sunshine falls upon 
them.' These early- going -to -sleep plants are rather 
trying, as they never look their best when one wants to 
show them off in the afternoon. 



88 MORE POT-POURRI 

The stalks or canes of Michaelmas Daisies should be 
cut down carefully, trimmed, and dried, as they make 
excellent sticks for plants in pots or even out of doors, 
and are well worth saving. 

November 3rd. — A lady writes strongly recommending 
a Tea Rose called ' Ma Capucine.' ' Such lovely red- scar- 
let buds from June to December,' she says. This I have 
now ordered. I have moved my white ' Lamarque Rose,' 
but I cannot get it to do well here. The Dean of Roch- 
ester wrote me a most kind letter reproaching me for 
saying I could not grow Roses, and implying that the 
fault is mine. This I know to be true, but the fact is I 
am so fond of variety in flowers, as in all else, that I 
grudge too much room in the garden being given to 
Roses ; and the attention and hand-picking they require 
in the spring, when I am very busy with other things, 
cause them to be neglected. 

Another correspondent from the north of London 
wrote that I exaggerated the difficulty of growing Roses 
near London. He says he has had good success with 
his. But then he lives on heavy soil, and that makes an 
extraordinary difference in their power of resisting their 
enemies — smoke, blight, etc. 

This year, a Crimson Rambler that failed near a wall 
(I believe they never do well on walls) has made pro- 
digious growth out in the open. I have cut out the old 
wood, spread out the long shoots, and tied them down to 
canes on either side, so as to increase the flowering all 
along the branches. Underneath is a large bed of ' Mrs. 
Simpkin' Pinks, and I think the two together will be 
pretty. 

November 7th. — I am always being asked about green- 
house plants, and how to get variety both for picking 
and for ornamenting a small greenhouse next a room. 
It has been rather the fashion of late to say : ' Oh ! I 



NOVEMBER 89 

don't care for greenhouse plants ; I only like hard}"- 
things.' This surely is a mistake. Cowper, that now- 
neglected poet, says : 

Who loves a garden, loves a greenhouse too. 

Unconscious of a less propitious clime, 

There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug, 

While the winds whistle and the snows descend. 

The spiry Myrtle, with unwithering leaf, 

Shines there and nourishes. The Golden Boast 

Of Portugal and Western India there, 

The ruddier Orange and the paler Lime, 

Peep through their polish'd foliage at the storm, 

And seem to smile at what they need not fear. 

The Amomum there, with intermingling flowers 

And Cherries, hangs her twigs. Geranium boasts 

Her crimson honours, and the spangled Bean, 

Ficoides, glitters bright the winter long. 

All plants, of every leaf that can endure 

The winter's frown if screen'd from its shrewd bite, 

Live there and prosper. Those Ausonia claims, 

Levantine regions these ; the Azores send 

Their Jessamine, her Jessamine remote 

Caffraria. Foreigners from many lands, 

They form one social shade, as if convened 

By magic summons of the Orphean lyre. 

Yet just arrangement, rarely brought to pass 

But by a master's hand, disposing well 

The gay diversities of leaf and flower, 

Must lend its aid to illustrate all their charms, 

And dress the regular yet various scene. 

Plant behind plant aspiring : in the van 

The dwarfish ; in the rear retired, but still 

Sublime above the rest, the statelier stand. 

In spite of what I consider the excellent gardening 
spirit in these lines, how curiously non-poetical they are 
according to the ideas of our day ! In my edition of 
Cowper there is a footnote to the word 'Ficoides,' ex- 
plaining it as 'Ice -plant,' which is an annual Mesembri- 
anthemum ; whereas he probably meant some of the 



go MORE POT-POURRI 

perennial flowering Mesembrianthemums, which, I think, 
are beautiful things in a winter greenhouse, in a pot, 
and hanging from a shelf. All the same, I imagine it 
would be possible to sow the Ice -plant so late that it 
might go on growing through the winter in a pot, though 
its beauty can never be so great as on a broiling hot 
summer's day. 

I agree with every word that Cowper says, and his 
lines suggest what I want specially to urge on those who 
pass the winter in the country. Greenhouses were new 
in Cowper' s time, and the pleasure of them has probably 
been wiped out — or, at any rate, greatly diminished — by 
the way people who can afford such luxuries are now 
always rushing away in search of sunshine in other 
climes, and are content to come back in June and find 
their flourishing herbaceous borders, that have been 
asleep under manure all the winter, surpassing in luxu- 
riance of colour and form the gardens of the South. 
One of the least helpful volumes of the large edition of 
Mrs. Loudon's 'Lady's Flower Garden' is the one called 
'Ornamental Greenhouse Plants' — so many things she 
recommends to grow are now proved to be hardy, and so 
many others that we now know to be well worth the 
trouble of eultivation for flowering in the winter are 
omitted altogether. I know no modern book that quite 
tells one enough how to keep a small conservatory fur- 
nished all the year round. 

Greenhouse flowers can be most interesting and vari- 
ous, and I propose each month through the winter to 
name fresh things as they come on and are brought into 
the small conservatory next my sitting-room. I am too 
ignorant to speak of any plants except those I grow. 
The conservatory faces east and south, so it gets what 
sun there is to be had in winter. I removed the stages 
that were there, except two shelves close to the glass on 



NOVEMBER 91 

the east side. I took up the tiles and dug a bed close to 
the north wall, which is against the drawing-room chim- 
ney, and another bed on the west side of the small 
square. These beds make the difference between a green- 
house and a conservatory. When I speak of a bed I 
mean that, though the floor of the greenhouse is tiled, 
the plants are planted in the ground. This is very es- 
sential in any conservatory, whether large or small. On 
the north side, facing south, is planted out what has now 
grown into a huge plant of Henry Jacobi. It has been 
there some years, and is cut down very severely about 
this time every year. Next to it is a quaint plant, one 
of the Platyceriums, growing on a piece of board hung 
on the wall, which requires nothing but occasional 
watering. Below that are two French flower- pots that 
hang flat against the wall and are filled with Maidenhair. 
A plant of the sweet yellow Jasmine and a plant of pale 
Heliotrope, both in the ground, are all the wall will hold 
on this side. In the middle of the other bed next the 
west wall, and also planted out, are a large sweet-scented 
double -white Datura ; a white Niphetos Rose, which 
runs up a pole to the glass roof ; a common Passion 
Flower, to make shade in summer ; and a blue Plum- 
bago capense. By the side of the door, growing up a 
wire, is a dark green Smilax, that has been there for 
many years and gives no trouble. The other things are 
in pots, and are constantly changed and moved. I grow 
both Pancretiums and Crinums; they are indeed worthy 
of every attention, and ought to be in all carefully se- 
lected collections. They are so sweet, so delicate, and 
so lovely ! — all that we prize most in single flowers. 
There are a great many kinds of both Pancretiums and 
Crinums. (See Johnson's 'Gardener's Dictionary.') 
Even the hardier Crinums in pots require heat at the 
growing time, and they often have to be grown for sev- 



92 MORE POT-POURRI 

eral years after they are bought before they flower at all ; 
but, once started, they seem to flower each year. I have 
a Crinum Moorei out of doors which makes its leaves 
every year, but has not yet flowered. 

I try to arrange the plants in groups in this conser- 
vatory. Whether there are ten plants of one kind, or 
only two, they are placed together ; and if there are dif- 
ferent plants more or less of one colour, they, too, are 
massed together. I think this makes the most immense 
difference in the pleasure to be got out of a greenhouse, 
and increases the colour -value of everything grown in 
it, as the power of one plant to kill or injure the colour 
of another is far more felt in a greenhouse than even in 
the open border. I have, now flowering, my usual num- 
ber of the protected Chrysanthemums. They are less 
good than last year, the wet June and dry August not 
having suited them. Last year the hardy early outdoor 
Chrysanthemums were very good indeed ; this year the 
season has been even harder on them than on the pot- 
plants. All the same, they should be very much grown 
in all gardens. They transplant quite easily from the 
reserve garden at any time from August onwards. I 
have yellow, orange, pink, white, dark red, and a very 
dark yellow, which seems to last the longest and be the 
hardiest. Some few cottage gardens have better varie- 
ties than I can boast. The great secret for the late-flow- 
ering hardy Chrysanthemums is to get them against 
walls, and, still better, under the protection of shrubs. 
Many of the greenhouse Chrysanthemums will also 
flower perfectly out of doors, if only planted late in the 
summer under shrubs, as I have just said. In this way 
they get a natural protection on cold nights. The last 
two years I have grown for the greenhouse, in pots, a 
Michaelmas Daisy that is new to me, called Aster gran- 
diflora. It has a stiff, pretty growth, and is quite hardy; 



NOVEMBER 93 

but it flowers so late that it does not come to perfection 
out of doors. It looks very well under glass in front of 
a group of white Chrysanthemums. The flowers are as 
large as Aster amellus, and of the same colour, which is 
so different in tone from that of any of the Chrysanthe- 
mums. It reminds me a little of Stokesia cyanea, which 
I used to grow in the same way; only that did not stand 
the moving and potting up nearly so well as this Aster 
does. I dare say I did not manage it rightly. 

November 8th. — There is a famous seller of old books 
in Frankfort named Baer. He lives in the Rossmarkt, 
and some of my best old flower -books I have had from 
him. I brought home this time one of those books that 
delight a collector's heart, a really very fine one. I 
have been told by an artist who saw it here that it must 
have cost more than 2,000Z. to bring it out. The book 
consists of two elephant folios bound in old stamped 
white vellum, and bringing them back as a parcel was 
not exactly easy. There is no letterpress at all in the 
first volume. It has two handsome frontispieces in the 
Dutch manner, with Flora and another goddess holding 
a large straw bee -hive. In the middle is the title, writ- 
ten in Latin and printed on what is supposed to 
represent a sheet of parchment, hung from a classical 
building with columns on each side. At the bottom is a 
representation of the Garden of Eden, with trees and 
various animals, all well drawn. Adam is walking with 
the Almighty, who is represented by the figure of an old 
man surrounded by what in early Italian art is called a 
mandorla, or almond-shaped glory. Miss Hope Rea, in 
'Tuscan Artists,' says of this almond-shaped glory: 
In Christian symbolism and art it is reserved for 
Christ, and has a profound signification. Though called 
a mandorla, or almond, it is really intended to represent 
the form of a fish ; and this, from the days of the 



94 MORE POT-POURRI 

Church of the Catacombs, was the accepted symbol of 
Christ, because the letters of the Greek ichthus = fish, 
give the initials for the Greek words, 'Jesus Christ, Son 
of God, the Saviour.' Mrs. Jameson, in 'Sacred and 
Legendary Art,' gives the Latin name, vesica piscis, for 
the oblong glory surrounding the whole person. She 
says that it is 'confined to figures of Christ and the 
Virgin, or Saints who are in the act of ascending into 
heaven.' It is, therefore, in ignorance that this German 
of the early days of the seventeenth century surrounds 
the Almighty with this almond-shaped glory instead of 
a glory round the head. The book is called 'Hortus 
Eystettensis,' and was brought out in 1613 by Basil 
Besler, an apothecary. On each side of the columns are 
two draped male figures, representing Solomon and 
Cyrus. The whole page is coloured (highly rather than 
beautifully) by hand ; and the large first volume must 
contain over three hundred pages, with designs of all 
kinds of flowers and fruit beautifully drawn and 
coloured. I believe the book with only outline represen- 
tations of the flowers is not very uncommon, but coloured 
copies are exceedingly rare. In fact, Herr Baer told 
me he had never seen another. Whether the colouring 
dates from the time of printing or not it is difficult to 
say. The paper is beautiful, the whole in excellent 
condition, and it is a treasure, from a collector's point of 
view. Binders were careless in those days, as one sheet 
is bound upside down. The second volume is not quite 
so thick, but the plates are of even greater beauty. It 
contains a curious copyright, given by Louis XIII., 
King of France and Navarre. The date of the book 
being 1613, the young king was only twelve years old 
when he granted this protection to his good servant, 
Basil Besler, who had been put to such great expense 
in producing his book. 



NOVEMBER 95 

November 10th. — I find several of the Japanese 
Maples so well worth growing and quite hardy here. 
They make very little growth, and want dry, sunny, 
protected places, where they suffer sometimes from 
drought, but recover by the following year, and are 
delightful plants. Golden Privet is a very pretty - 
growing plant when young, out of doors or in pots. 
It has been much used of late in London in window- 
boxes. I have never tried to see if it would keep its 
leaves in a room. 

November 13th. — I gathered to-day a small but 
bright, well -grown Oriental Poppy; and several of the 
Delphiniums, cut down in summer, have flowered beau- 
tifully a second time. One cannot provide for or be 
sure of these out -of -season garden surprises ; but when 
they come by chance — some one year, some another — 
they are very delightful, interesting, and precious. 
They are like an unexpected piece of good fortune, or 
the return of a long- absent friend, who, one thought, 
had quite forgotten one, and who returns as on the day 
he left — as friendly, as kind, and as confidential. Such 
surprises push back for a moment the dial of the clock 
— a thing not to be despised even as a passing illusion, 
whether in the late autumn of a garden or of life. 

November 18th. — Two days later than I have ever 
before remained down here ! It is such beautiful 
weather. In these mild days the singing of birds comes 
slightly as a surprise, so different from the silence of 
August and September. How little one realizes during 
this silence that the birds, thrushes especially, begin to 
sing now, in November, and keep on all through the 
winter, in mild weather, till the end of June. The 
robin did not like the dry season ; he began to sing so 
late this season. 

November 20th. — Most people who have gardens wish 



96 MORE POT-POURRI 

to grow Lilies, and yet very few are really successful 
with them. By far the finest I have seen in this part of 
the world were grown in an Azalea bed, in more than 
half shade, and copiously hosed all through the hot, dry 
weather. They were really beautiful. A book called 
'Notes on Lilies and their Culture,' by Dr. Wallace, of 
Colchester, has only lately come to my knowledge, and I 
am quite sure anyone who wishes to grow Lilies will not 
get on well without it. It is an admirable book ; in 
fact, its only fault is that it is so comprehensive one 
feels, as with most of the specialist gardening books, 
that the rest of one's life must be spent in trying to 
understand that one plant. I think there is a good deal 
to be said for this kind of gardening. As the amateur 
advances in knowledge, he naturally wishes to grow with 
extra perfection some plants with which everybody 
cannot succeed. And I think, in the case of small 
gardens near towns, that it would be a real interest for 
a man to grow, let us say, Lilies from Dr. Wallace's 
book, or Irises by the advice of Professor Foster, or 
Cactuses according to Mr. Watson. This has been done 
over and over again in the case of Roses ; but rarely, in 
my experience, with other plants. 

November 27th. — My principal flower-table in sum- 
mer is in a cool hall away from the sun. In winter, 
now that I live here all the year round, I have it in the 
sitting-room, close to a large south window. The sun 
in summer quickly kills flowers that are cut and in 
water, but in winter this is not so. On the contrary, it 
seems to cheer them up and make them open out and 
look happy. I will describe this flower -table as it stands 
before me. At the back, in a pot, is a baby Araucaria 
(Puzzle -monkey). These trees, so ugly when growing 
on a lawn, are charming in the baby stage. They can 
be grown from seed, and they do very well in a room. 



NOVEMBER 97 

This little tree is raised on a Japanese stand. Beside it 
is a pot containing a small orchid, Odontoglossum pic- 
turatum, one mass of flowers like yellow Violets. 
Various Cypripediums are in front in a glass, and 
Imantophyllums that have stood out all the summer 
and thrown up a few late autumn flowers ; they are 
always most effective picked. There are also pieces cut 
from a bright yellow Coronilla flowering out of doors 
against a greenhouse wall, a bunch of white Paris 
Daisies that were left out to be killed by the frost and 
are still flourishing, and a bunch of the black berries of 
the common Privet, which contrast well with a few bright 
orange Gazanias, also left out to perish early in the year 
from cold and dryness, but of which we always take 
cuttings, as it has this great merit of late flowering out 
of doors. Finally, there is a precious bunch of Neapoli- 
tan Violets. For the first hour or two after they are 
picked I always put a small bell-glass over them, as the 
warm moisture from condensation under the glass very 
much increases their sweetness. 

I do not find it recommended in any of the modern 
gardening books that I have, but I am sure, if you want 
your Lilacs to flower well and never assume that weedy, 
choked appearance that they generally have in gardens, 
it is most important to remove, every winter, the 
numerous suckers that surround Lilac bushes. When 
this is done, it is as well to introduce a little manure 
round the roots. 

Receipts 

An excellent winter salad is made by mashing pota- 
toes as if for a purte, and beating them up with a little 
lukewarm weak stock or warm water instead of milk, 
and no butter. Then dress them with a little chopped 
chive, oil and vinegar, pepper and salt. This is good 



98 MORE POT-POURRI 

with braised meats or boiled salt beef, and can be end- 
lessly improved and varied by covering it up, after it 
is dressed, with chopped hard-boiled eggs, beetroot, 
cucumbers bottled in vinegar, anchovies, etc., etc. In 
fact, with these kinds of salads one can give hardly any 
rule, as imagination and experiments are everything. 
The ordinary red cabbage makes a very good salad. It 
must be cut into very fine shreds, then scalded by pour- 
ing a large kettle of boiling water over it. When cool, 
but not cold, it should be dressed with oil and vinegar, 
like ordinary salad, covered up, and allowed to stand -for 
two or three hours. 

Pheasant stuffed with Woodcocks. — The French 
say : ' To the uninitiated this bird is as a sealed book ; 
eaten after it has been killed but three days, it is insipid 
and bad — neither so delicate as a pullet, nor so odor- 
iferous as quail. Cooked at the right moment, the flesh 
is tender and the flavour sublime, partaking equally of 
the qualities of poultry and game. The moment so 
necessary to be known and seized on is when decompo- 
sition is about to take place. A trifling odour and a 
change in the colour of the breast are manifested, and 
great care must be taken not to pluck the bird till it is 
to be larded and cooked, as the contact of the air will 
completely neutralise the aroma, consisting of a subtle 
oil, to which hydrogen is fatal. The bird being larded, 
the first thing to do is to stuff it, which is effected in the 
following manner : Provide two woodcocks, bone and 
divide them into two portions, the "one being the flesh, 
and the other trail, brains, and livers. You then take 
the flesh and make a forcemeat by chopping it up with 
some beef -marrow cooked by steam, a little rasped 
bacon, pepper, salt, fine herbs, and so much of the best 
truffles as will, with the above, quite fill the interior of 
the pheasant. You must take care to secure this force- 



NOVEMBER 99 

meat in such a manner that it shall not escape, which is 
sometimes sufficiently difficult if the bird is in an 
advanced state ; however, it is possible to do so in 
diverse ways, one of which is by fitting a crust of bread 
and attaching it with a bit of ribbon. Take a slice of 
bread one -third of an inch thick and two inches wider 
on each side than the bird when laid on it. Then take 
the livers, brains, and the trail of the woodcocks ; 
pound them up with two large truffles, an anchovy, a 
little rasped bacon, and as much of the finest fresh 
butter as may seem necessary. Spread, then, this paste 
on the toast equally, and let the pheasant, prepared as 
above, be roasted over it in such a manner as that the 
toast may be saturated with the juices that drop during 
the operation of roasting. When that is done, serve the 
pheasant gracefully laid on its bed (the toast). Garnish 
with Seville orange, and be tranquil as to the result.' 
This extract from ' Les Classiques de la Table ' (p. 129) 
I have taken from 'The Gentlewoman.' The gourmets 
must make haste and try this dish, for fear the wood- 
cocks, which are getting very scarce, should disappear 
altogether. It is rather a mystery why they are 
becoming so rare in England, for they are birds that 
migrate. It has been suggested as as explanation that 
sport is now so cosmopolitan, and breech -loading 
weapons have so favourably handicapped the modern 
gunner, that the woodcock is being gradually eliminated. 
Poor little, clever, swift -flying thing, he is, safe no- 
where ! 

Mince-meat for Christmas should be made about 
the 20th of this month. I think this old Suffolk receipt 
is better than the one in 'Dainty Dishes' or in Mrs. 
Roundell's 'Practical Cookery.' The following direc- 
tions are for a large quantity, but, of course, the 
proportions can be greatly reduced : Two pounds of 



ioo MORE POT-POURRI 

beef suet finely chopped, two pounds of raisins stoned 
and chopped, two pounds of currants washed and 
picked, two pounds of apples chopped fine, one pound 
and a half of raw beef scraped and chopped fine (even- 
little bit of gristle having first been removed), one 
pound of finely preserved ginger, six lemons (juice and 
peel), twelve oranges (only the juice), a little salt, one 
pound and a half of sugar, a little spice. Mix well with 
brandy and sherry to taste. Keep in stone jars in a 
cool place. 

German Way ol Warming- Up Potatoes.— Boil 
them, let them get cold, cut them in thin slices into a 
fireproof dish, add a little butter and milk, grate some 
Parmesan cheese on the top, and bake in the oven. 

Boiled Beef. — Take six to eight pounds of good fat 
top- side or silver -side, beat it very hard on all sides 
with a heavy wooden oak-log, to break the fibre. Put 
it into a deep earthenware pot or copper stewpan, with 
about five to five and a half quarts of cold water, adding 
all its bones and all the parings and bones you may have 
over from the joints, chickens, etc., of previous days. 
Let it come gently to the boil, remove all the rising 
scum, then add two leeks, two carrots, half a celeriac, 
one turnip, and several sprigs of parsley and chervil. 
Put the lid on so that a small slit remains open. Place 
it by the side of the fire, so that it should not get off the 
boil, and yet only boil quite gently. Leave to boil for 
three and a half to four hours from its first boil. Serve 
with a garnish of the vegetables cooked in the broth 
and little Jiors-d' -o&uvre of salted cucumbers, horse- 
radish grated finely and dressed with oil and vinegar, 
beetroot salad, cress salad, celeriac salad — in fact, end- 
less variations. It is very good with a plain tomato 
sauce (French system). 

Minced Gallops. — Pass as much raw lean gravy beef 



NOVEMBER 101 

as you require two or three times through a mincing 
machine. Fry it in about two ounces of butter for a few 
minutes. Add pepper, salt, a little flour, and gravy or 
water. Let this simmer for about twenty minutes, 
keeping it well stirred to prevent it getting lumpy. A 
little minced onion may be fried with the butter, and is 
a great improvement. This receipt is very useful in 
wild countries where the meat is hard and bad, and 
where other food is deficient. 

How to Dress Cod. —Take some slices of a small 
cod and bake them in the oven in a little butter, with a 
squeeze of lemon -juice, exactly as you would do salmon. 
Serve with Tartare Sauce, as in 'Dainty Dishes'; only, 
instead of putting it in a boat, which means a wastefully 
large quantity, serve it in a little flat dish with a small 
spoon. Brown bread and butter should also be handed 
with it. 

November 21st. — This is the first time in my life that 
the short days have drawn in shorter and shorter and 
that I have found myself alone, having to make up my 
mind that being alone is my future, that my time is at 
my own disposal, and that I am to live so always, except 
for occasional visitors, who will grow fewer as time 
goes on. 

It is not sad to turn the face towards home, 

Even though it shows the journey nearly done ; 
It is not sad to mark the westering sun, 

Even though we know the night doth come. 

I do not dread loneliness in itself ; but those who live 
with one, if they are kind and just, do take their share 
of the burden of life, and it is hard to have no one to 
whom one can go with those numberless little things 
which are often big things in life's routine, and that one 
hides away from those who come in from the outside 
world as guests, be they ever so near and dear. It is 



102 MORE POT-POURRI 

best to keep oneself continually occupied, and one 
realises that though the end cannot be so very far off, 
yet the natural love of life is very strong indeed, and an 
immense help. In a little volume of poems called 
'Ioniea,' very well known to a few, but which I believe 
has not spread to a large public, there are two poems 
which I think strike singularly sympathetic notes. The 
four lines of ' Remember,' do they not come home to one 
with all the tenderness of a message ? 

You come not, as aforetime, to the headstone every day, 
And I, who died, I do not chide because, my friend, you play; 
Only, in playing, thiuk of him who once was kind and dear, 
And, if you see a beauteous thing, just say,' He is not here.' 

I reverse the position of these poems in the volume, 
this short one being at the very end, and the following 
almost in the beginning. I wonder if those who don't 
know them will like them as much as I do. 

You promise heavens free from strife, 

Pure truth, and perfect change of will ; 
But sweet, sweet is this human life — 
So sweet I fain would breathe it still ; 
Your chilly stars I can forego ; 
This warm, kind world is all I know. 

You say there is no substance here, 

One great reality above ; 
Back from that void I shrink in fear, 
And, child-like, hide myself in love; 
Show me what angels feel. Till then 
I cling, a mere weak man, to men. 

You bid me lift my mean desires 

From faltering lips and fitful veins, 
To sexless souls, ideal quires, 
Unwearied voices, wordless strains ; 
My mind with fonder welcome owns 
One dear dead friend's remembered tones. 



NOVEMBER 103 

Forsooth, the present we must give 
To that which cannot pass away ; 
All beauteous things for which we live 
By laws of time and space decay. 
But oh, the very reason why 
I clasp them is because they die. 

Great grief, like great joy, has a right to be selfish — 
for a time, at any rate. Everyone recognizes this, and, 
in fact, wishes to minister to it so long as the selfishness 
does not extend, as it were, to the grief itself or to a 
feeling of rebellion against the inevitable, which tends to 
hardness and paralyses the sympathy of friends and 
relations. 'To the old sorrow is sorrow, to the young it 
is despair.' We must not forget this. The highest ideal 
of how to receive grief with dignity is admirably 
expressed in this sonnet by Mr. Aubrey de Vere, though 
the moral reaches almost unattainable heights : 

Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 
God's messenger sent down to thee; do thou 
With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow 

And, ere his footsteps cross thy threshold, crave 

Permission first his heavenly feet to lave. 
Then lay before him all thou hast, allow 
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow 

Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave 
Of mortal tumult to obliterate 

The soul's marmoreal calmness. Grief should be, 
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate, 

Conforming, cleansing, raising, making free, ' 
Strong to control small troubles, to command 
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end. 

November 30th. — A long, gloomy, lonely day. I 
thought this evening I would look through a large box I 
have upstairs full of old letters and papers left to me, 
and which I have always intended to sort at my leisure. 
They have been there for years, but I have never had 



104 MORE POT-POURRI 

time, in the hurry and business of life, even to glance 
through them. It is an employment that requires rather 
a peculiar state of mind, a quiet eddy away from the too 
rapid swirl of ordinary life. Such an occupation must 
recall to the memory of anyone who has ever read it 
Professor Max Miiller's preface to his charming little 
story called 'German Love,' which was published as long 
ago as 1877. The little book treats of love — the eternal 
familiar subject — with that touch of genius that makes 
originality, and the preface fits so curiously with my 
thoughts to-night that I think I must quote it : 

' Who has not, once in his life, sat down at a desk 
where shortly before another sat who now rests in the 
grave ? Who has not had to open the locks which for 
long years hid the most sacred secrets of a heart that 
now lies hidden in the holy calm of the churchyard 1 
Here are the letters which were so loved by him whom 
we all loved so well; here are pictures and ribbons, and 
books with marks on every page. Who can now read 
and decipher them ? Who can gather together the faded 
and broken leaves of this rose, and endow them once 
more with living fragrance 1 The flames which among 
the Greeks received the body of the departed for fiery 
destruction — the flames into which the ancients cast 
everything that had been most dear to the living — are 
still the safest resting-places for such relics. With 
trembling hesitation, the bereaved friend reads the pages 
which no eye had ever seen, save the one now closed for 
ever ; and when he has satisfied himself by a rapid 
glance that these pages and letters contain nothing 
which the world calls important, he throws them hastily 
on the glowing coals; they flame up, and are gone. 

'From such flames the following pages were saved. 
They were intended at first for the friends only of the 
lost one ; but as they have found friends amongst 



NOVEMBER 105 

strangers they may, since so it is to be, wander forth 
again into the wide world.' 

I began my task, turned over the old, mouldy papers 
of long, long ago, and came across a bundle of the early 
love-letters of my father and mother. So long as I live 
I cannot allow them to be consigned to the flames, as 
Professor Max Miiller recommends. They are so simple, 
so touching and interesting in their old-world language, 
that my first impulse was to string them together anony- 
mously, adding the little tale of the love affair as per- 
haps no one but I could do. But even without names 
this might possibly have shocked the taste of people who 
are sensitive on the subject of letters. I am not one of 
those who object to the publishing of love-letters, given 
sufficient time for personal knowledge and recollection 
of the writers to have crumbled away. Voltaire said: 
' On doit des regards aux vivants: on ne doit aux morts 
que la verite.' Had I myself written beautiful love- 
letters in my youth, it would be a pride and joy to me 
to think that generations unborn should appreciate and 
enjoy the depths of my devotion, and forgive my weak- 
nesses for the one great reason which will endure for 
ever, 'because she loved much.' A little boy asked: 
' Why is everyone called ' ' poor ' ' and ' ' good ' ' when 
they are' put into a box in the ground? ' I say: What 
is it all the world forgives in the future, though at 
the time society must defend itself by hard judgments 
and stern morality ? What we all think vile and. odious, 
and what shocks our best sensibility, though it is inevi- 
table, is the publication of the most commonplace love- 
letters in the police or divorce courts. But does not 
love, above everything that we share with our common 
humanity, belong to all? Is it not the most brilliant, 
glorious possession we have ? Are we not really proud 
of it even when it is misdirected ? Is not the perusal of 



106 MORE POT-POURRI 

unselfish, passionate, devoted letters — such as, for in- 
stance, Mary Woilstonecraft's letters to Imlay (a per- 
fectly unworthy object) — a better lesson to women than 
all the articles, all the lectures, and all the sermons ever 
preached i And why should we not, each of us, gain 
strength through the publication of letters which show 
the weakness of love in gifted beings like Keats and 
Shelley ? I cannot see any objection, and with pride 
and joy would I have given, to those who cared to read 
it, this interesting little bundle of papers, yellowed by 
time, and written by my parents in the sunshine of their 
youth, portraying that nothing really came between the 
two but that old struggle — difference of opinion on relig- 
ious subjects — and also showing the confident hope on 
both sides that love ought to conquer. 

Time crystallises, to my mind, such material into bi- 
ography ; and the more absolutely true biography is, the 
more interesting it becomes to the public. I have noted 
down from some book — perhaps Symonds' Life — that 'the 
first cannon in the art of unsophisticated letter -writing 
is that, just as a speech is intended for hearers rather 
than for readers, so is a letter meant for the eye of a 
friend and not for the world. The very essence of good 
letter -writing is, in truth, the deliberate exclusion of 
outsiders, and the full surrender of the writer to the 
spirit of egotism — amicable, free, light-handed, unpre- 
tending, harmless, but still egotism. The best letters 
are always improvisations, directly or indirectlj r , about 
yourself and your correspondent.' Letters of this kind 
are, in my opinion, the very ones most worth giving to 
the public. The man of the world says : 'Burn all let- 
ters, and only write insignificant notes with little mean- 
ing in them, so that there may be nothing for others to 
keep.' Goethe says : 'Letters are among the most sig- 
nificant memorials a man can leave behind him.' This 



NOVEMBER 107 

seems to me true of private individuals, as well as of 

those who have played a notable or distinguished part 

on life's stage. But this is not the general opinion — to 

which I, being only a prudent old woman, am content to 

bow — and once more return to the box this touching, 

interesting, and characteristic love-story of my father 

and mother. I find, however, one letter written by my 

father, and dated 1834, which is so impersonal and so 

different from the ordinary love-letter to a young girl 

that I think it can appear an indiscretion to no one that 

I should publish it. 

They met for the first time, by chance, on a summer's 

afternoon for a little over an hour, and so completely 

was it love at first sight on his side that he told my 

mother afterwards he would gladly have married her 

there and then had it been possible. She belonged to 

a Tory family, so bigoted and narrow in their ideas that 

they could hardly find a parallel in our day ; and on to 

this training, with her hatred for worldliness and with 

all the enthusiasm of her youthful aspirations, she had 

grafted an almost Methodistical view of the duties of a 

Christian. His views, on the other hand, were on all 

points those of an advanced Liberal of the early days of 

John Stuart Mill. Circumstances kept them apart for 

four years, and at the end of three, after an accidental 

meeting, he wrote her the following letter. With all 

its humility, one can easily see that his object was the 

enlightenment of a mind which had been narrowed by 

its training : 

' Sunday night, July, 1834. 

'Pray do not think I mean to force another letter 
upon you. Your word is law to me, and I feel too deeply 
obliged to you for all you have so kindly and generously 
risked, in order to afford me the gratification of hearing 
from you, to think of going myself or endeavouring to 



108 MORE POT-POURRI 

force you one step beyond what you think right and 
proper in this respect. I only wish to say one word 
upon the two or three books I am venturing to send 
you. I was delighted with your intention of continuing 
German, because I am convinced that you will derive 
great pleasure and benefit from your study of it. It is 
a language which, from its power of expressing abstract 
ideas, to say nothing of its structure and the facility 
which exists in it of forming endless combinations of 
words, is of a much higher order than any other 
European language. It approaches nearest to the 
Greek, and is no bad substitute to those who have never 
had an opportunity of studying that language. No 
foreigner can learn it without acquiring many new ideas 
and rendering clearer some which he possessed before. 
There is much, too, in the mind of the Germans as 
reflected in their literature, the high tone of sentiment 
in their moral writings, and the constant reference to 
the ideal in their philosophy, which could not fail to be 
interesting and attractive to you. Unfortunately, I do 
not know how far you are advanced in your study of the 
language, but I think I remember your telling me that 
you had but just begun it. I have therefore sent you 
" Klauer's Manual," the best book for self -tuition 
which has been published, and I have marked in the 
Index a few of the selections which are perhaps the 
easiest to begin with. There is this advantage in the 
book, that should you be so far advanced as not to need 
the interlinear translation, the selections which are 
given without it contain some admirable passages from 
the best authors. Should you be but just beginning, I 
should advise you to learn by heart only the articles, 
y e five personal pronouns, and y e three auxiliary 
verbs : and then, looking over the conjugation of the 
regular verb, proceed at once to read the pieces in the 



NOVEMBER 



109 



1 st vol. in the order iu which they are marked, using 
the 2 nd vol. (in which they are translated) as the key. 
You will find the numbers of the pieces in the 2 nd vol. 
corresponding with those in the 1 st . I have also sent 
you a little volume of Schiller's poems, with a few 
which I like marked. I should advise you, if any took 
your fancy, to learn them by heart ; it is an agreeable 
way of getting into one's mind a great fund of words to 
be serviceable on all occasions. I had some difficulty in 
getting you the " Morgen und Abendopfer," but I was 
anxious that you should have these little poems. They 
are written by a German clergyman. The poetry is 
very pretty and simple, and I like them for the cheerful 
view which they take of religion. I have also ventured 
to send you a little book of selections from different 
authors, principally for the sake of those which have 
been made from the works of four men whose writings 
I have often perused with almost unmixed satisfaction. 
I mean Jeremy Taylor, South, Bacon, and Milton. I send 
them to you, not only as samples which will, I think, 
please you, but in the hope that they will induce you to 
look further into the works from which they are taken. 
I had inserted some loose pages containing parallel 
passages and observations upon the text, but think, 
upon the whole, it would be to expose you to observa- 
tion were I to send the book with them in and anybody 
but yourself happened to look into it. I only send you 
with it some verses of Southej-'s which struck me as 
very pretty, and which I have but lately met with. You 
can take them out. Taylor is a writer of the greatest 
eloquence and the most exuberant imagination I am 
acquainted with in any language. He had at the same 
time an humble mind, and was thoroughly imbued with 
a true spirit of Christian charity. South is distinguished 
for y e vigour and nervous energy of his style and 



no MORE POT-POURRI 

thoughts. He had a thoroughly strong mind — too 
confident, however, and uncompromising to admit of his 
being really tolerant of the opinions of others. His 
conception of the state of man before the Fall, though 
it savours of course of y e ideal, is a very remarkable 
performance. Bacon had a practical mind, and no man 
perhaps ever so thoroughly mastered the subject of 
human nature as he did. If you can get his Essays, 
which are sold almost everywhere, pray read them — or 
rather, I should say, study them, for they are models of 
conciseness. Every sentence admits of development. 
They force one to think for oneself, which is the best 
service an author can render one. Justice has not been 
done to Milton's prose works in this little book, but, as 
they are mostly confined to political subjects, they 
might not perhaps interest you so much. Milton's mind 
was not wholly free from bigotry. But I love him for 
his hatred of tyranny and persecution under every shape, 
for his unquenchable ardour for liberty, and his hearty 
and fearless advocacy of the enlightenment of mankind. 
Among his poetical works do you know the "Comus " 
well ? There are parts of it which, I think, he never 
surpassed. I am sure you must like it. His "Paradise 
Lost" is indeed a study — a noble and improving one 
for all who can comprehend his sublime conceptions and 
the beautiful and powerful language in which he has 
clothed them. But I must think he was unfortunate in 
his subject. A lover of pure religion can hardly fail to 
think that the effect of parts is to degrade and humanise 
the Divinity. I can hardly conceive that the 3 rd Book, 
in which he propounds the mystery of the Redemption 
and details its origin, should not be in some degree 
shocking to a true Christian. The poetry of it is cer- 
tainly most sublime, but there is, on the whole, a famil- 
iarity in the scene described which .makes me think it 



NOVEMBER in 

would have found a fitter place in the writings of a hea- 
then. I had also got you one or two more books, but I 
am afraid to send them, lest you should think I presume 
too much upon y e permission you gave me. One of them 
was an Essay upon the nature and true value of military 
glory, and another upon the education of the poor as 
the best kind of charity we can do them. Depend upon 
it, it is so ; and all indiscriminate relief, given as it 
generally is for the selfish purpose of gratifying our own 
benevolence, partakes not of the real nature of charity, 
which regards the good of the object ; and, while it 
tends to diminish their own exertions in the present, 
prevents them from acquiring those habits of providence 
and self-dependence which, in the long run, constitute 
their only chance of respectability and happiness. There 
is no fear the stream of charity will want channels in 
which to flow, and I also do not believe that its sources 
are the least likely to be dried up. There are more 
funds required for education and y e support of some 
kinds of hospitals than will, I fear, ever be supplied. 
You would find Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Polit- 
ical Economy" very useful, and there are some good 
reasons given in the beginning why ladies should be 
acquainted with the principles of the science. Let me 
recommend to you, as connected with your German 
reading, Madame de Stael's work on Germany. I have 
derived great pleasure from reading it. And though she 
occasionally goes out of her depth, and her facts are 
not always correct, there is a good deal still of profound 
reflection and much valuable information in the work. 
I will mention to you a few others of the books which I 
have most admired. I am not, however, a miscellaneous 
reader ; I wish I could be ; but I have not a retentive 
memory, and as reading is to me valuable only in pro- 
portion as I retain what I read, I confine my studies 



ii2 MORE POT-POURRI 

as much as possible to those works which I can bear to 
read over and over again. Of such character is Words- 
worth's poetry, and I should be glad if no day elapsed 
without my reading some portion of it. If you have 
his works with you, pray read the "Ruth," the 
"Laodamia," the "Ode to Duty," the "Lines Written 
Near Tintern Abbey " (I know nothing more beautiful 
than this), the "Cumberland Beggar," and a little 
poem — I think he calls it the "Yew Tree" or the 
"Yew Tree Seat" (for I have not the book with me) — 
in which there are some lines beginning, ' ' The man 
whose eye is ever on himself doth look on one the least 
of Nature's works," etc. I like Coleridge's poetry, but 
less well. Of all his long pieces I like his translation of 
Schiller's Wallenstein the best. It is admirable as a 
poem, while it is perfect as a translation. His "Ancient 
Mariner" and his "Love" or "Genevieve" are very 
beautiful. I hope you will be able to read my friend's 
play, which my sister told you of. 1 I longed to send it 
to you. It is a work of genius, and at the same time of 
great labour. He is a man of humble birth, but of an 
exalted mind ; and that, I am sure, you will think better 
than being "some tenth transmitter of a foolish 
face"! In religious works, I have best liked Butler's 
"Analogy" and "Sermons," Taylor's and South's ser- 
mons, Paley's "Evidences," all Whateley's works — 
especially his ' ' Romish Errors ' ' and the ' ' Peculiarities 
of Christianity" — and Davison on prophecy. This is a 
work which will survive the present day. Its author is 
just dead, prematurely. He was a man of great powers 
of mind, but his health prevented him from sustaining 
any great intellectual labour. Sumner's" Records of the 
Creation" is a very instructive work, as well as a most 
interesting one. I should like to recommend to you 



1 Philip van Artevelde. 



NOVEMBER 113 

also Southey's "Life of Wesley." It is not very easy 
to get it, but I am sure it would well repay you for 
reading. Among lighter books, I will mention Scott's 
"Lives of the Novelists." It is not only a very 
interesting book, but there is a great deal of sound 
criticism in it — particularly, for instance, in his lives of 
Richardson and Fielding — and it would be well if the 
generality of novel -readers had some fixed and firm 
certain principles of taste by which to judge of the 
merits of what they read. I was much struck, I assure 
you, with your remarks upon the "Admiral's Daughter" 
to my sister. The criticism seemed to me as just as it 
was well expressed. What I bad objected to in the 
work was the intention of placing the man of intellect 
and of cultivation in unfavourable contrast with the 
man of impulse and feeling. You will say that religion 
made the difference ; but I am not aware that anythiug 
which is good in the good man is supposed to arise from 
the presence of religion. But I will not write you a 
letter, though I feel as if I could go on for ever. No. 
I fear, for so long as you desire it, all direct communica- 
tion must cease between us. I doubt not you are right. 
Heaven grant that it may be renewed at no distant 
time and under happy circumstances ! May God for 
ever bless and protect you ! ' 

In 1835 they were married, and had eight short years 
of great happiness. This was constantly described to 
me in a way to make a deep impression on a child's 
mind, and to account for a sentimental vein in me that 
was perhaps beyond what was usual even in the days 
when a very different tone was prevalent among girls 
than at present. Though my recollection of my father 
was of the faintest, my hero-worship for him amounted 
almost to idolatry all through my childhood. I so ven- 



ii4 MORE POT-POURRI 

erated the few of his written sayings that my mother 
brought to my notice that I think they powerfully affected 
my character. I confess it gave me great pleasure when, 
a few years ago, I saw two references to him in a volume 
of Lady Carlisle's letters written from Paris in 1832. 
The allusion was in a letter dated 'Paris, September 1st, 
1832,' and was as follows: 'Edward Villiers is here, 
only for one day. He is the image of George' (his 
eldest brother) , 'only handsomer and graver. I think 
him uncommonly pleasing.' The other notice was on 
November 5th, when the old lady says: ' Edward Villiers 
is my love. He is delightful, excellent, and interesting. 
A Villiers without any of the shades.' He died of con- 
sumption at Nice in October, 1843. In Charles Gre- 
ville's ' Memoirs' is the obituary notice which he wrote 
for the ' Times' of November 7th. It has a certain 
literary interest, as being so much more personal in 
tone and more deliberately the act of a friend than is 
usual in notices of the same kind to-day : 

' Last night came intelligence from Nice that Edward 
Villiers was dead. He went there in a hopeless state, 
was worse after his arrival ; then an abscess broke in 
his lungs, which gave a momentary gleam of hope, but 
he expired "very soon after. I had a very great regard 
for him, and he deserved it. He was a man little 
known to the world in general — shy, reserved to 
strangers, cold and rather austere in his manners, and, 
being very short-sighted, made people think he meant 
to slight them when he had no such intention. He was 
not fitted to bustle into public notice, and such ambi- 
tion as he had was not of the noisy and ostentatious 
kind. But no man was more beloved by his family and 
friends, and none could be more agreeable in any 
society when he was completely at his ease. He was 
most warm-hearted and affectionate, sincere, obliging, 



NOVEMBER 115 

disinterested, unselfish, and of unscrupulous integrity ; 
by which I mean integrity in the largest sense, not 
merely that which shrinks from doing a dishonourable 
or questionable action, but which habitually refers to 
conscientious principles in every transaction of life. He 
viewed things with the eye of a philosopher, and aimed 
at establishing a perfect consistency between his theory 
and his practice. He had a remarkably acute and 
searching intellect, with habits of patient investigation 
and mature deliberation ; his soul was animated by 
ardent aspirations after the improvement and the hap- 
piness of mankind, and he abhorred injustice and 
oppression, in all their shapes and disguises, with an 
honest intensity which produced something of a morbid 
sentiment in his mind and sometimes betrayed him into 
mistaken impressions and erroneous conclusions. 

' The expansive benevolence of his moral sentiments 
powerfully influenced his political opinions, and his deep 
sympathy with the poor not only rendered him inexor- 
ably severe to the vices of the rich, but made him regard 
with aversion and distrust the aristocratic elements of 
our institutions, and rendered him an ardent promoter 
of the most extensive schemes of progressive reform. 
But, while he clung with inflexible constancy to his own 
opinions, no man was more tolerant of the opinions of 
others. In conversation he was animated, brilliant, 
amusing, and profound, bringing sincerity, single-mind- 
edness, and knowledge to bear upon every discussion. 
His life, though short, uneventful, and retired, was 
passed in the contemplation of subjects of interest and 
worthiest to occupy the thoughts of a good and wise 
man ; and the few intimacies he cultivated were with 
congenial minds, estimable for their moral excellence or 
distinguished by their intellectual qualities and attain- 
ments. The world at large will never know what vir- 



u6 MORE POT-POURRI 

tues and talents have been prematurely snatched away 
from it, for those only who have seen Edward Villiers 
in the unrestraint and unreserve of domestic familiarity 
can appreciate the charm of his disposition and the 
vigour of his understanding. No stranger would have 
divined that under that cold and grave exterior there lay 
concealed an exquisite sensibility, the most ardent affec- 
tions, and a mind fertile in every good and noble qual- 
ity. To the relations and friends, who were devotedly 
attached to him, the loss is irreparable, and will long be 
deplored, and the only consolation which offers itself is 
to be found in the circumstances of his end. He was 
surrounded by kind and affectionate friends, and expired 
in the arms of his wife, whose conduct he himself de- 
scribed to have been that of a heroine as well as an 
angel. He was in possession of all his faculties, and 
was free from bodily pain. He died with the cheerful- 
ness of a philosopher and the resignation of a Christian 
— happy, devout and hopeful, and joyfully contemplat- 
ing death in an assured faith of a resurrection from the 
dead.' 

Only those who have been brought up by a widowed 
mother whose whole life had been snapped asunder by 
such a loss, can quite realise how very peculiar and un- 
like other homes it is. 

How rare it is to be perfectly natural under a great 
grief ! There is so often an element of self -conscious- 
ness, an honest wondering how our attitude will strike 
others. If we use self-control and try to let life flow in 
its usual currents, we fear to be thought indifferent, 
cold, and hard. If once the smallest display of grief 
becomes in any way a habit, it is difficult to resume 
again that perfect sincerity of manner which, after all, 
is the only outward expression of true feeling. A short 
time ago in 'The Weekly Sun,' in one of Mr. T. P. 



NOVEMBER 117 

O'Connor's wonderful reviews of a Life of Tolstoi, he 
quotes a passage which is a very vivid picture of self- 
consciousness in grief. ' Tolstoi describes his visit to 
his mother's death - chamber : "I could not believe it 
was her face." How this comes home to us all ! The 
change made by death, the effort of the brain to recog- 
nise that what we see before us is the loved object, 
whom, living, we should instantly have recognised 
among a million. Tolstoi continues : " I looked fixedly 
at it, and by degrees began to recognise in it the dear 
familiar features. I shuddered when I did so, and knew 
that this something was my mother. But why had her 
closed eyes sunk thus into her head ? Why was she so 
dreadfully pale ? and why was a dark spot visible 
through her transparent skin on one of her cheeks ? 
Why was the expression of her face so stern and so 
cold ? Why were her lips so bloodless and their lines 
so fair, so grand ? Why did they express such unearthly 
calmness that a cold shiver passed through me as I 
looked at them ? . . . Both before the funeral and after 
I did not cease to weep and feel melancholy. But I do 
not like to remember it, because a feeling of self-love 
mingled with all its manifestations ; either a desire to 
show that I was more afflicted than the rest, or thoughts 
about the impression I produced upon others ; or idle 
curiosity which made me examine Mimi's cap or the 
faces of those around me." ' The reviewer adds: 'Now 
I call this passage morbid.' It may be, but the descrip- 
tion is extraordinarily true to many under the influence 
of grief, though they fail to analyse or understand their 
own mental state. 

We all say, we all think, we all know, that ' in the 
midst of life we are in death ' ; and yet when the blow 
falls with appalling startlingness on someone who is near 
to us, how we all must feel — with a piercing, heartrend- 
ing reality — ' If I had known ' ! 



n8 MORE POT-POURRI 

If I had known, O loyal heart, 

When, hand to hand, we said 'Farewell,' 

How for all times our paths would part, 
What shadow o'er our friendship fell, 

I should have clasped your hand so close 
In the warm pressure of my own 

That memory still might keep its grasp — 
If I had known. 

If I had known when far and wide 
We loitered through the summer land, 

What presence wandered by our side, 
And o'er you stretched its awful hand, 

I should have hushed my careless speech 
To listen well to every tone 

That from your lips fell low and sweet — 
If I had known. 

If I had known when your kind eyes 
Met mine in parting, true and sad — 

Eyes gravely tender, gently wise, 
And earnest rather more than glad — 

How soon the lids would lie above, 
As cold and white as sculptured stone, 

I should have treasured every glance — 
If I had known. 

If I had known that, until Death 

Shall with his fingers touch my brow, 
And still the quickening of the breath 

That stirs with life's full meaning now, 
So long my feet must tread the way 

Of our accustomed paths alone, 
I should have prized your presence more — 
If I had known. 

Christian Reed ('Weekly Sun,' 1897). 

Oh ! the anguish of that thought — that we can never 
atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, 
for the light answers we returned to their plaints or 
their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to 
that sacred human soul that lived so close to us and was 
the divinest thing God had given us to know. 



DECEMBER 

Lonely evenings and more papers— Figs from France— Hornbeam* 
and Weeping Hornbeams — Wire netting round small fruit trees 
—Damsons — Roman Hyacinths and Paper-white Narcissus — 
Effect of coloured glass on plants — Use of corrugated iron — 
Lord Lyndoch — Cultivation of Mistletoe — A list of plants- 
Anniversary present-giving — Christmas decorations — Acetylene 
gas — The old learning to live alone — Receipts. 

December 1st. — I have been turning out more old let- 
ters, and among other papers, with other memories and 
connected with other times, I found this fragment of 
what was evidently intended to be an autobiography of a 
long life. As a sketch of a little boy's life nearly sev- 
enty years ago, with its allusions to foreign lands and 
customs now nearly extinct, I think it is not entirely 
devoid of interest. I omit an account given of the 
writer's family, the story of his father and mother, and 
his own birth in Switzerland : 

1 My early youth was passed in many different places, 
but I have not much recollection of them. One season 
we had a house in Hereford Street, Park Lane — a site 
now occupied by Hereford Gardens. I remember cows 
being milked for purchasers in Hyde Park, and Blacks 
playing the cymbals in the bands of the Guards. 

1 When very young we went to Scotland, where my 
father, who was very devoted to every sort of sport, 
enjoyed his life immensely. Those days were before the 
railway period, and an Englishman in Scotland was a 
comparatively rare person. 

4 Whilst I was in Edinburgh I went with my brother 

("9) 



120 MORE POT-POURRI 

Augustus to a large day-school called the Circus Place 
School. It was attended by boys and girls of every 
class that could afford to pay the fees, and the little 
Scotch roughs used rather to bully us two English lads. 
My dear mother, in her anxiety that we should not catch 
cold by walking to school in the snow and sitting with 
wet feet, used to send us there on bad days — of which 
there were a good many in that abominable climate — in 
a Sedan chair, the customary conveyance at that time in 
Edinburgh. I shall never forget the jeers with which we 
were greeted when, on arriving at the school, the chair 
was opened by lifting up the top to release the door, and 
we were shot out, spick and span, among the crowd of 
little hardy brats who had trudged with their satchels on 
their backs through the snow-slush which our mother so 
dreaded for us ! 

'At this time I remember " Pickwick" coining out in 
monthly numbers, and my father's anxiety for their 
appearance as the month's end approached. 

'Another subject of recollection is the efforts that 
were made to get franks for letters from Members of 
Parliament. The penny postage had not then been in- 
vented, and my impression is that a letter to London 
from Scotland was charged a shilling. I do not know 
how many franks a day a Member had, but I think there 
was a limit. If he did not require his full allowance for 
his own correspondence, he used to oblige his friends by 
signing his name on an envelope, as a Secretary of State 
does now, and handing it to his applicant. It did not 
seem to occur to anyone that the privilege was given to 
facilitate a Member's official correspondence, and that 
handing it on to others was an abuse of it. 

'Whilst in Paris, Augustus and I attended a little 
day-school of French boys. It was in a small street 
somewhere near the Rue St. Honore. The great pump- 



DECEMBER 121 

kins then so much used in the poorer parts of Paris, 
exhibited outside the little shops partly cut and showing 
their yellow flesh, are among the recollections of those 
daily walks to and from school. 

'We used to have our midday meal at the school, and 
I have grim memories of the Friday maigre dinner, with 
a sour bonne femme soup which did not please our Brit- 
ish beef- and mutton -trained appetites. But what do I 
not owe to the admirable woman who assisted her hus- 
band in his educational duties, and who stood over 
Augustus and myself while with rigorous efforts she 
endeavoured to convert our pronunciation of the French 
word for bread from ' ' pang "to " pain ' ' ! How per- 
sistent she was, that dear, conscientious Frenchwoman! 
How often, with repeated and exaggerated aspiration of 
the final "n," did she drive into our unaccustomed ears 
the proper sound of that much (by Britons) murdered 
monosyllable! And she succeeded at last, and broke the 
neck of our initial difficulties in French pronunciation. 
I think I was nine years old at this time; but the gloomy 
little garden, with a horizontal gymnastic pole, and the 
parallel bars under the one Lime tree, the whole screened 
off from the next-door estate by an ivy -covered trellis, 
are present to my sight. 

' I have no recollection whatever of the journey from 
Paris to Tours. We children, with the tutor and ser- 
vants, must have made it by diligence, and perhaps my 
remembrance of it has been obscured by the more vivid 
impressions of the joys or the sufferings — the difference 
depending upon which direction I was going in — of the 
same journey several times performed on my way to and 
from a school at Paris, which I will refer to later on. 

' The house my father had taken at Tours was called 
the "Grands Capucins" — I believe, from being a house 
of retreat or "pleasaunce" house belonging to a Capucin 



122 MORE POT-POURRI 

monastery. And surely no monks, skilful as they were 
in the selection of localities, ever chose a more charming 
spot for a small villa -like residence where they could 
retire from the austerities and the duties of the convent. 

' Situated on the heights which rise on the right 
bank of the Loire at this point in its course, and 
immediately over the little faubourg of Tours, St. 
Symphorien, it commanded an extensive and beautiful 
view of the river, the town of Tours, and the rich 
plains to the south watered by the rivers Cher and 
Indre. The grounds, I fancy, were in extent about five 
acres, but there were vineyards and other appurtenances 
belonging to the estate, though not comprised in the 
lease, which made an almost boundless playground for 
children, and were so varied by terraces, caves in the 
side of the hill, and other strange incidents of site, that 
a great excitement was lent to the games of mimic 
wars and surprises at which we were constantly playing. 
There was a large tank under one side of the old house 
— you descended to it by steps from the garden — and 
armed with candles, for it was pitch-dark, and provided 
with planks, we used to embark on its water and navi- 
gate the mysterious cavern — an amusement that led to 
wet feet and friction with Mrs. Hunt, the old nurse, in 
consequence. 

' The front part of the house was modern ; it stood 
on a platform raised above the large formal garden 
before it. The boundary of the garden was a terrace- 
walk looking down on the river and the town. There 
were no steamers, or very few, in those days, and, of 
course, no railway ; and the long strings of flat -bot- 
tomed barges, with their great white square sails, that 
carried the merchandise from Nantes up the river when 
the wind served, made a striking feature in the scene. 

'There was a wine -press attached to the rambling 



DECEMBER 



123 



old house, and the proprietor made his wine from the 
vineyards every autumn. There was also an old bil- 
liard-table, and we used to do a little wine -pressing of 
our own by putting the bunches of fat black grapes into 
the net pockets and squeezing the juice into a jug. The 
fruit of all sorts was magnificent ; the greengages, the 
muscat grapes on the face of the cliff, the gooseberries, 
strawberries, currants, and in autumn the walnuts, 
were splendid objects for youthful greediness, and are 
matters of life -long remembrance to me. 

' The grounds and gardens were under the care of a 
family who resided in a cottage and bore the name of 
Diete. There were the Pere and Mere Diete, good old 
sabot -wearing peasants who worked in and overlooked 
the vineyards, while their son Martin attended to the 
garden. We had a coachman called Joseph, an old 
cavalry soldier who interested us children with his tales 
of the siege of Antwerp by the French in 1832, and 
particularly by his account of a cavalry charge in which 
he took part. The noise of its galloping, he used to 
say, was like the tonnerre de Dieu. His contempt of 
the infantry soldier, whom he spoke of as le piou-piou, 
was characteristic of the attitude of the dragoon towards 
the foot -soldier in all armies. 

'Augustus and I learnt to swim in the Loire. We 
used to go out in a punt with a maitre de natation, who 
hooked us on to a pole by a belt round our waists, and 
so supported us in the water till we could • keep our- 
selves afloat. We also amused ourselves by sailing a 
toy boat in the lagunes and back-waters of the river. 
One day, while so occupied, a French lad of about fif- 
teen or sixteen began throwing stones at our cutter. 
Augustus, who was taller than I and much more daring, 
rushed at the Frenchman, and, after a struggle with 
him, was thrown on the sand. The French lad, who 



124 MORE POT-POURRI 

lmil the best of the wrestle, improved his advantage by 
taking up handfuls of sand and rubbing it into Augus- 
tus' eyes while he was lying helpless underneath. A 
stout stick the French boy had brought with him had 
fallen in the struggle under Augustus. I, seeing the 
position, dragged the stick out from under the com- 
batants, and began belabouring the Frenchman with 
all my might. This soon converted our defeat into a 
victory, and the enemy, extricating himself from his 
antagonist, fled from the field. The lad's father then 
appeared on the scene and relieved himself by a torrent 
of abuse. In those days the memories of the old 
struggles between England and France were still alive 
among the populace, and we were constantly followed by 
gamins shouting after us "Goddam Anglish" and other 
contemptuous expressions. 

' During our residence in Touraine, Augustus and I 
went with Mr. Nicholl, the tutor, to visit the old castles 
of the neighbourhood, and I remember going to Loches, 
Chinon, Chenonceaux, and Chambord, travelling in the 
little country diligences. 

' In the winter evenings, at the "Capucins," my father 
used to read Walter Scott's novels to us, and I recall 
how we looked forward with excitement to the time of 
resumption of the stories. "Quentin Durward" was 
especially interesting to us, as the scene of a great part 
of his adventures was within sight of our own house, 
Plessis les Tours being just across the river. 

' On the whole, my life at Tours was the part of my 
youth to which I look back with the greatest pleasure. 
It has tinged my whole existence with a great love of 
France, and, until the experience of late years showed 
me the childish petulance in political affairs of her peo- 
ple, I had a sincere admiration and affection for them. 

' The time came at last when I had to go to school. 



DECEMBER 



125 



I was eleven years old when my father took me to Paris, 
to a school for English boys kept by a M. Rosin, a 
Swiss. It was established in a fair -sized house with 
grounds round it, something like a superior villa at 
Putney, near the Arc de Triomphe and to the north of 
the Champs Elysees. It was distinguished as No. 15 
Avenue Chateaubriand, Quartier Beaujon, and has long 
since disappeared. The whole region has become the 
site of the fine hotels of the magnates of finance who 
have since the 'forties peopled the neighbourhood of the 
Champs Elysees. When I was at school, the Bois de 
Boulogne was a scrubby waste. The only road of im- 
portance through it from the Arc de Triomphe was 
that to Neuilly. 

'A few sorry hacks and donkeys stood saddled for 
hire at the fringe of the Bois. There were no houses of 
any size farther up the Champs Elysees than the Rond 
Point, and near the Arc was a waste occupied by the 
earth thrown out of the road in the leveling operations 
of its construction. I remember it well, for it was on 
the heaps resulting from the excavations that we stood 
one bitterly cold day in the winter of 1840, from 8 A. m. 
to 1.30, to see the funeral of the great Napoleon pass 
through the arch on its way down the Champs Elysees 
to his burial-place, in the crypt of the Invalides. 

'Augustus followed me to the same school. I do not 
think I could have been there more than eighteen 
months, but it was long enough to have the recollection 
of the journey ings in the diligence to and from Tours at 
Christmas and at midsummer. Very happy migrations 
they were on the way home, and very much the reverse 
on the return to school. 

' In the winter my father and mother used to come to 
Paris, and take an apartment for a time in the Hotel 
Mirabeau in the Rue de la Paix. And every Saturday 



126 MORE POT-POURRI 

while they were there we passed the afternoon and the 
following day with them, sleeping in the hotel. There 
was not much of the present luxury of washing at 
schools in those days. At Rosin's, once in three weeks, 
we were marched off to some bains where we could enjoy 
a good wash in a warm bath and a surreptitious cake of 
chocolate, provided by the garcon de bains for a consid- 
eration. So there were great washings on the Saturday 
nights at the hotel, superintended by our dear mother, 
after our return from the "Francais," where we were 
always taken on the Saturday evenings for a lesson in 
French. Rachel was just coming into celebrity, and we 
sat through the long and, to us, unexciting Racine plays 
in which she appeared, rather sleepy after dinner at a 
restaurant and an afternoon of exceptional interest, 
driving about the streets. Those strictly classical 
plays, in which the three unities are rigidly observed, 
were very tedious to us boys, and the prospect of an ice 
at Tortoni's on the way home was more engrossing, I 
am ashamed to own, than the oassionate scenes ren- 
dered by the great actress. 

T remember, while at Rosin's, going sometimes to 
spend the afternoon and dine at Lord Elgin's, the hero 
of the Elgin Marbles acquisition. He seemed to me 
then a very old man, and always sitting at a writing- 
table in a corner of a large room in their house in the 
Faubourg St. Germain, while his daughters performed 
the up-hill duty of trying to amuse me, a stupid, shy 
boy of eleven. I was also taken out by other friends 
of my father's, and can recall the intense sleepiness fol- 
lowing an unwonted dinner at seven o'clock, before the 
time came for being packed off in a fiacre to the 
Avenue Chateaubriand. 

'But the time came when Augustus and I, both des- 
tined for the army, had to prepare, he for Woolwich and 



DECEMBER 127 

I for Sandhurst. It was decided that we should go to a 
great preparatory school of those days for the military 
colleges of the Queen's and East India Company's ser- 
vices, kept by Messrs. Stoton and Mayor at Wimbledon. 
The school was a large one, and would be thought a 
rough one now. The only washing place was a room 
on the ground floor, with sinks and leaden basins in 
them, to which we came down in the morning to wash 
our hands and faces. There was very little taught but 
mathematics for the army boys, and classics for those 
destined for Haileybury, the East India Company's col- 
lege for the Indian Civil Service. Copley Fielding 
taught some boys drawing and water-colour painting. 
There was also a French class, presided over by a poor 
little old Frenchman, M. Dell. I never in my life met a 
being to whom the term "master" was less applicable. 
The French master at the schools of sixty years ago was 
not a happy person. He was despised of all men and 
boys, and his position was one of such inferiority that 
no man of any power or spirit was likely to fill it. Sto- 
ton allowed no prize for the French class, and it has 
been one of the most touching incidents of my life that 
the poor old Frenchman gave me a little prize which he 
paid for himself. It was a small edition of Florian's 
fables. I had it with me for years, but where it has 
gone to now I know not. It is perhaps buried some- 
where among the increased belongings that inheritances 
and a settled life have accumulated about me ; I wish I 
could find it again. Augustus and I were probably the 
only boys that had been in France, and certainly the 
only ones with any pretension 01 speaking French, and 
I think the good little man had a predilection for us 
among the crowd of sneering John Bulls — hating him, 
his language, and his country — that it was his hard 
fate to teach. It would be a great delight if I could 



128 MORE POT-POURRI 

perform an anachronistic miracle and find him as he 
then was, to give him a hundred times the value of his 
poor little book. 

'From Stoton's, at the age of fourteen, I went to the 
Royal Military College at Sandhurst, and Augustus 
must have gone to the Military Academy at Woolwich 
about a year later. My father took me to the college, 
and we slept the night before the entrance examination 
at the "Tumble -down Dick" inn at Farnborough, 
which was then the nearest station. The examination 
was a farce, of course. I suppose they ascertained that 
one could read and write, and the doctor satisfied him- 
self you were not deformed, but I don't believe it went 
much farther.' (Here the fragment ends.) 

December 5th. — The weather is wonderfully mild. I 
have a bunch of Tea Roses flowering in the room that 
were picked out of doors yesterday. Have seasons 
changed, or have the Roses ? I used to think Owen 
Meredith's allusion to the Rose of October so true: 

If Sorrow have taught me anything, 
She hath taught me to weep for you ; 

And if Falsehood have left me a tear to shed 
For Truth, these tears are true. 

If the one star left by the morning 

Be dear to the dying night, 
If the late lone rose of October 

Be sweetest to scent and sight, 

If the last of the leaves in December 

Be dear to the desolate tree, 
Eemember, belov'd — O remember, 

How dear is your beauty to me ! 

December 10th. — I have again been away. At last it 
is quite winter, and everything is at rest outside. But 
if all the outdoor Chrysanthemums, or even the hardiest 
indoor ones, had been moved in October or November 



DECEMBER 129 

into sheltered places under shrubs and trees, or against 
walls, there has been, up to now, no frost to hurt them 
in such situations. Some that I moved twice this 
autumn are not feeling it at all. 

If Camellias are grown in pots, they make far more 
buds than they can possibly carry, and severe disbud- 
ding is most useful. 

Outdoor Heaths seem to do better for cutting back 
after flowering. 

Just lately I have received from the south of France 
a box of dried figs, not pressed at all, but just dried in 
the sun, as the peasants eat them. They are delicious, I 
think ; far better than the usual dried figs we get in 
England, the inside seeds of which, as a rule, are much 
too hard. 

December 11th. — The Hornbeam — one of the old 
indigenous trees of England, and among the very best 
for firewood — is, judging from what I notice, very little 
planted now and rarely named in catalogues. And yet 
for many purposes it is useful and beautiful. It stands 
the knife to any extent, and makes most satisfactory 
hedges. 

In my last book I spoke of pergolas — those covered 
walks made with poles, or columns of bricks or stone, 
and overgrown with creepers of all kinds. Now I 
would speak of the 'charmilles' — walks either of turf or 
gravel, covered over with arches of growing trees, with 
no supports or wires or wood, merely the interlacing of 
the boughs till they grow thick overhead with continual 
pruning. There is a little short walk of this kind at 
Hampton Court — I forget how it is made (I mean, with 
what trees it is planted) — and in the Boboli Gardens at 
Florence there are endless varieties, as everyone knows, 
of these covered walks. They would be very beautiful 
on the north or east side of many a sunny lawn ; and if 



i 3 o MORE POT-POURRI 

a garden were too small for such a walk, there might 
still be room for an occasional self -forming arch, which 
adds mystery and charm to any garden. It could be 
made either with Hornbeam, Beech, or (perhaps best of 
all in light soil) Mountain Ash, which flowers — and 
berries too — all the better for judicious pruning, and 
which could make a support as well for Honeysuckle or 
a climbing Rose. This kind of planting to gain deep 
shade can be done over a seat, and would not take very 
long to grow into a natural arbour. A Weeping Horn- 
beam — which, I suppose, must be -a modern gardening 
invention, as it is not mentioned in Loudon's very com- 
prehensive 'Arboretum et Fruticetum' — is also a splendid 
tree for a sunny lawn; and in the female plant the long, 
loose, pendulous catkins are very attractive. The seeds 
ripen in October, and the bunches or cones which con- 
tain them should be gathered by hand when the nuts are 
ready to drop out. The nuts separate easily from the 
envelope, and if sown at once will come up the following 
spring. All this sounds rather slow, for in these days 
people buy all they want and never wait. Messrs. Veitch 
sell both kinds of Hornbeams, and even tall, well -grown 
plants of the weeping kind are not expensive. 

'Bosquets, or groves, are so called from bouquet, a 
nosegay; and I believe gardeners never meant anything 
else by giving this term to this compartment, which is a 
sort of green knot, formed by branches and leaves of 
trees that compose it placed in rows opposite each 
other.' The author of 'The Retired Gardener' then 
adds : ' I have named a great many compartments in 
which Hornbeam is made use of ; yet methinks none of 
them look so beautiful and magnificent as a gallery 
with arches.' 

December 13th. — We have just been digging up and 
preparing a good -sized oblong piece of ground in the 



DECEMBER 131 

best and sunniest part of the kitchen garden, and 
moving into it gooseberries and currants — red, white, 
and black. Round this I am going to place, after 
considerable deliberation and doubt, a high fine-wire 
fencing, with an opening on one side instead of a gate — 
which reduces the expense — and the opening can be 
covered when necessary with a net. The reason for not 
wiring over the top, besides the expense, is that it causes 
a rather injurious drip in rainy weather and breaks down 
under the snow. I am also assured by good gardeners 
that it is unnecessary, and that the wire netting round 
the sides is a most effectual protection to the bushes, as 
small birds do not fly downwards into a wire -netted 
enclosure. My gardener is very skeptical on this point, 
and says he thinks our birds are too clever to be kept 
out by such half -measures. I think we have an undue 
share of birds, as on one side of the kitchen garden there 
is a small copse, belonging to a neighbour, which has 
been entirely neglected for years, and presents the 
appearance of what one would imagine a virgin forest 
might be. This affords the most extraordinary pro- 
tection for birds, and bullfinches and greenfinches 
abound. They not only do harm to the fruit when it is 
ripe, but they strip the trees of their buds in dry weather 
in early spring. If this new wire netting answers, I am 
told we ought to have three times the fruit for a less 
quantity of bushes. I shall grow white currants on the 
netting, with battens or sticks fastened to it as a 
protection from the heat of the zinc wire, which is fatal 
to everything. The trees are now all whitened with a 
preparation of lime, which is distasteful to the birds and 
insects. After all this, I shall indeed be disappointed if 
my crop of small fruit is not larger this year. However, 
a late frost may still defeat us altogether. 

Mr. Wright, in his book ' Profitable Fruit-growing' 



i 3 2 MORE POT-POURRI 

(171 Fleet street, London), has a sentence on the pur- 
chasing of fruit trees, which is so good I must copy it: 
' First look to the character and position of the vendors, 
and deal with those who have reputations to maintain. 
They cannot afford to sell inferior trees or, what is of 
vital importance, distribute varieties under wrong names. 
It is a very serious matter to grow fruit trees for some 
years, then when they bear find they are not the sorts 
ordered, but inferior. Time thus lost cannot be 
regained. Order early in October, and the sooner the 
trees arrive and are planted after the leaves fall, the 
better they will grow.' He goes on to say, what is 
equally true, that the best trees are spoilt by bad plant- 
ing, and it is deplorable to see how roughly the work 
is often done through lack of knowledge. Every kind of 
instruction is clearly given by Mr. Wright in this excel- 
lent, inexpensive little book, and if read carefully and 
followed, things must go right. I have fallen this year 
into the so common fault of ordering the little I meant 
to have too late ; but, as they are only a few hardy 
Damson trees, I hope they will forgive me and do well 
all the same. Damsons are certainly not cultivated 
enough, and yet, after Morello Cherries, they make the 
best of jams and no fruit tree gives such big crops for 
so little outlay. The trees enjoy full exposure and need 
hardly any attention, but it is well to remember to stake 
them securely, to prevent strong winds blowing them 
about and straining the roots. Our only trouble is the 
birds, who eat out the buds before they even blossom. 
Some buds we could spare, but that is not Mr. Bully's 
way; if he begins on a tree he completely clears it, as 
the missel -thrushes do the Rowan berries of summer. 
Last year they fixed on a Pear tree that was covered 
rather early with buds, and in one week every trace and 
promise of blossom was gone. 



DECEMBER 133 

December 14th. — I have a large field in which we 
have generally grown the coarser kind of vegetables — 
Potatoes, Cabbages, Jerusalem Artichokes, etc., and such 
things that do best in a very sunny, open place. Find- 
ing that now, as I do not go to London, I do not require 
such a large supply of vegetables, I am going to sow 
and grass over half the field. It is between this and the 
vegetable part that I have been planting the row of 
Damson trees — half common and half cluster, by way 
of experiment. The Bullace, a true cottager's fruit, is a 
variety of the Damson, and not to be lightly regarded 
for both preserving and pies. It ripens soon after other 
Damsons, and so a succession is made. 

December 15th. — I am told some people have tried 
and approved of my suggestion of arranging greenhouse 
Chrysanthemums in groups of colour instead of dotting 
them about all mixed, one injuring the effect of the 
other. But I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing 
a large greenhouse so arranged, and I have not room for 
a great number myself. One of the very best is Abra- 
ham Lincoln, with its bushy habit, its grand bluish 
leaves, and its strong yellow flowers, which remain a 
good yellow at night. A charming small, but most dec- 
orative Chrysanthemum is called 'Mrs. Carter.' It is 
pale yellow, white at night, and its growth and appear- 
ance are just like those of a Sweet Sultan. 

I saw the other day a little Geranium {Pelargonium) , 
called ' New Life,' that was new to me ; the petals were 
white and red mixed. Growing on the plant, it was not 
especially pretty; but picked and mixed with some light 
green it had quite an uncommon appearance. I thought 
on first seeing it that it was a double Bouvardia. ' Mrs. 
Leopold Rothschild ' is a most beautiful pink Carnation. 

Just now I have several pots in full flower of an 
orchid that never fails year after year, Lygopetalum 



i 3 4 MORE POT-POURRI 

mackayi. It does not require much heat, and lasts a 
long time, either on the plant or in water. It throws up 
long flowering stems, has a most delicious perfume, is 
quiet in colour — yellowish green and brownish purple 
— and very refined in shape. I find it a most useful 
plant for the time of year, and we have many more 
pots than we had, so it is not very difficult to increase. 

In the corner of the greenhouse there is a good group 
of Poinsettia pulcherrima. Some people say they do not 
like these rather curious plants. They are useless for 
putting into water, but I think they look very bright 
and cheerful on these dark days. They do best if grown 
every year from cuttings. 

December 19th. — We have been more successful this 
year with the forcing of bulbs — Roman Hyacinths and 
Paper- white Narcissus — than ever before, and I think 
it is a good deal owing to having carefully obeyed the 
instructions given in a little pamphlet, ' How I came to 
grow Bulbs,' which I have mentioned before. Mr. Rob- 
ert Sydenham is as instructive about pot culture as he is 
about outdoor culture. He gives exactly the information 
required ; and if this is carefully read there can be no 
confusion as regards the different treatment required by 
Narcissi, Tulips, and Hyacinths. A great many nur- 
serymen profess to sell the Chinese Lily, really a Tazetta 
Narcissus with a yellow centre, which grows with ex- 
treme rapidity in bowls of water; but instead of the 
true thing they often send out the Paper -white Nar- 
cissus. 

Late though it is, I have been moving pieces of 
Kerria japonica and planting them against the bare 
stems of moderate -sized trees. They do admirably, and 
look so gay and bright in spring. They can be tied to 
the trunk for support, and the branches of the tree 
above protect them from spring frosts. They are most 



DECEMBER 



135 



amiable plants, and in no way resent being moved about. 
The single and variegated Kerrias are not such strong 
growers as the double. If the latter get to look untidy, 
they can be removed after flowering. 

I saw a curious account in a newspaper lately about 
the colour of glass greatly affecting the growth of 
plants. The discoverer of this theory is Camille Flam- 
marion, the French astronomer. He has found that 
plants grown in a red hot-house become, in a given 
time, four times as big as those exposed to ordinary 
sunlight. The poorest development, practically amount- 
ing to failure, was under blue glass ; and lettuces grown 
under green glass did badly. It would be interesting to 
try experiments. I wonder if it would answer to colour 
red the stuff sold for painting the glass of greenhouses 
as a shade in summer ? 

We have done a great deal of pruning this year of 
our old Apple trees, sawing out large branches in the 
middle to let in air. The trees have been shortened 
back so much that they bear far too many apples, and 
none come to any size. 

December 18th. — We have never been very successful 
here with the growing of Mushrooms. We have no 
Mushroom house, and have to try what can be done in 
various sheds and outhouses. I am told that the most 
essential point to remember is that the horses must have 
no green food or carrots during the time that the drop- 
pings are being collected. My own belief is that our 
beds have been kept too dry, and that this is the reason 
of our failure, in spite of making up the beds with the 
greatest care, according to the directions in the excellent 
little books which are sold everywhere, and which always 
represent Mushroom culture as the easiest thing in the 
world. Also, it may be that when the beds were watered 
it was not with rain-water. Our soil is so sandy that 



136 MORE POT-POURRI 

even when mixed with anything that is put to it, it 
dries more easily than any ordinary garden soil. This 
winter my gardener has tried, with marked and satis- 
factory success, a bed under the greenhouse stage. It is 
made up in the ordinary way, and darkened and saved 
from the drip of the plants above by a sheet or two of 
that invaluable corrugated iron, which I mentioned 
before, and which I find more and more useful for pro- 
tection at night, protection for pot-plants in spring, 
keeping the wet out of sunk pits, shading summer cut- 
tings effectually, and so on. It also makes an excellent, 
though ugly, paling instead of a wall. Even Peach trees 
will grow well against it if the plants are tied to pieces 
of batten or sticks — some stuck into the ground and 
the branches tied horizontally from stick to stick, and 
some put across the zinc — as then the plant, be it Peach 
or Vine, enjoys the heat radiated from the zinc, which 
yet cannot burn or injuriously dry the bark in summer. 
In winter it is still more important that air should be 
between the plant and the zinc, which gets extremely 
cold in frosty weather. This, of course, applies equally 
to covering zinc houses or sheds with creepers. 

This is a long digression from the Mushroom bed. 
We have already had several excellent and useful dishes 
off it from this the first experiment. Our outer cellar 
is too cold here to grow Mushrooms in winter, though 
it does well to grow the common Chicory for the 
Barbe-de- Capucin salad, and also protects from early 
autumn frosts the Broad -leaved Batavian Endive, which 
does so infinitely better here than the Curled Endive. 
We grow this in large quantities. It makes by far the 
best late autumn salad, and is also quite excellent 
stewed. (See 'Dainty Dishes. 7 ) 

We have not yet succeeded here with the vegetable 
now so much sold in London in early spring; viz., 



DECEMBER 137 

Witloof or Large Brussels Chicory, but I mean to try 
this next year. 

I went to lunch to-day with a neighbour, whose 
house is full of things recalling memories which belong 
to other days. As we sat at luncheon I began to gaze, 
as I invariably do, at whatever hangs on the walls, and 
I am always thankful when I have not to look at photo- 
graphs. I have plenty of these myself, but they are the 
least decorative of furnishing pictures. On the wall 
opposite to me was rather an uncommon print of the 
Duke of Wellington, looking more than usually martial 
and stand -upright, and with an extra severe thunder- 
cloud behind him. It was from a picture by Lawrence, 
I expect, and a fine thing in its way. As a pendant to 
this was another print of a soldier. I turned to my 
hostess and, pointing to it, said: 'Who is that?' My 
friend answered, with rather a marked tone: ' Why, that 
is Lord Lyndoch,' as if most certainly I ought to have 
known. Now, frankly, I had never heard of Lord 
Lyndoch, so I said rather humbly and inquiringly : 
' Peninsula, I suppose ? But I am very badly read; who 
was he?' And then she told me: 'Why, the Grahame 
who went to the wars after his wife's death, as you 
describe in your book in speaking of young Mrs. Gra- 
hame's picture in the Edinburgh Gallery.' She added: 
'He was on Sir John Moore's staff and standing close 
by his horse when he was wounded at Corunna, and Sir 
John Moore was carried into Mr. Grahame's tent or hut, 
where he shortly died, and the poor young man was so 
utterly exhausted he lay on the floor by his dead friend 
and slept.' She told me that Lord Lyndoch was a known 
feature in society and a visitor in country houses in her 
youth, and she remembered him well at her grand- 
mother's house in Hertfordshire. 

December 19th. — The weather has been so astonish- 



138 MORE POT-POURRI 

ing the last few days one cannot realise it is the week, 
not of the shortest days, but of the shortest afternoons 
of the whole year. This sentence brought about a 
fearful coolness between me and my dear secretary, 
who asked for an explanation of the statement, and, 
when I tried to give it, failed to understand. We agreed 
to refer the matter to an authority that we both believed 
in. The next day brought the following reply : ' The 
explanation you require is, I think, hardly suited to 
" Pot -Pour ri." I should put it somehow thus, "that 
week in which the almanack tells us the days are grow- 
ing shorter, though the sun sets at a later hour." Of 
course the afternoon does not grow longer. Noon is the 
moment at which the sun crosses the meridian, and it 
then attains its highest point for the day ; and, of 
course, if it rises later, it also sets earlier. The appa- 
rent anomaly occurs thus — the solar day, which is 
measured from the time the sun crosses the meridian 
on one day to the time it does ditto on the next, is not 
of uniform length. The reasons — which you need not 
read — are : (1) The path of the sun does not lie in the 
equator, but in the ecliptic ; (2) owing to the earth's 
orbit not being circular, its motion in the ecliptic is not 
uniform. . Now, it would manifestly be very uncom- 
fortable to have days of varying length ; therefore, an 
imaginary sun has been invented which is supposed to 
behave in a decent and orderly fashion ; the time by 
him is called "mean time," and is that shown by a 
watch. The time shown by the real sun is called 
"apparent time," and is that shown by a sun-dial. 
The difference between these two times is as much as 
sixteen minutes at certain seasons of the year. Now, 
on the shortest day the sun crosses the meridian nearly 
two minutes before twelve o'clock. He was earlier 
the few days before ; therefore, his time of setting 



DECEMBER 139 

was earlier too. Suppose that on December 21st ap- 
parent noon is at 11.58 a. m., and the sun sets at 3.51 
p. m., and on December 14th the apparent noon is at 
11.55 a.m., and the sun sets at 3.49 p.m. Now the 
afternoon on December 14th is one minute longer than 
on December 21st (3 hours 54 minutes to 3 hours 53 
minutes), and yet the sun has set two minutes earlier 
(by our watches).' 

December 20th. — Another beautiful afternoon. Such 
clear yellow skies ! To me the top twigs of Holly bushes 
against a primrose sky recall, oh ! so many winter days 
in the past ; long walks through bare woods and rus- 
tling brown leaves beneath our feet ; the closing -in of 
curtains in the warm fire -lit rooms where we grew up, 
which in old age I see as plainly as if I had never left 
the house where I was born. But to return to the 
weather of this year, the following was in a newspaper a 
day or two ago : 'A beautiful yellow butterfly was seen 
disporting itself in the sunshine of yesterday.' I did 
not see a butterfly here, but Chrysanthemums still 
linger, Violets are out, and the yellow Jasminiiim nudi- 
florum is in unusually full flower. 

I have no Mistletoe here, but I presume I might have 
it if I cultivated it. It no doubt has become so much 
rarer from being always cleared out of orchards, the 
pretty pale -fruited parasite being no friend to the 
Apple trees. If one wishes to cultivate the Mistletoe, 
select a young branch of Willow, Poplar, ThOrn, or an 
old Apple or Pear tree, and on the underside slit the 
bark to insert the seed. The best time to do this is in 
February. One may merely rub a few seeds on the out- 
side of the bark, but that is not so safe as inserting 
them actually under the bark. Raising Mistletoe from 
seed is better than either grafting or budding. 

This is a good time for planting Ivies. There are 



140 MORE POT-POURRI 

many different kinds, and they will grow in such a sat- 
isfactory way in such bad places. In London gardens 
or back yards Ivy can be made into quite a feature. As 
Curtis says, in his ' Flora Londinensis ' : ' Few people 
are acquainted with the beauty of Ivy when suffered to 
run up a stake, and at length to form itself into a 
standard ; the singular complication of its branches and 
the vivid hue of its leaves give it one of the first places 
amongst evergreens in a shrubbery.' 

My Lancashire friend sends me a list of a few Roses 
and annuals. Lists are always so useful to all garden- 
ers, as it is interesting to know what one has got and 
what one has not, that I give his list as he wrote it : 
' To begin with Roses. Kaiserin Augusta Victoria, 
Allister Stella Gray (climber), Gustave Regis, Maman 
Cochet, have done best with me. Adonis autumnalis, 
Alonsoa Warscewiczii, and Kaulfussia amelloides are three 
annuals new to me. Acis autumnalis is a small South 
of Europe bulb, rare and supposed to thrive out of 
doors in sandy soil. Cimicifuga racemosa — I think all 
borders ought to have this tall- growing, handsome 
herbaceous plant ; Dictamnus fraxinella and its white 
variety, Eupatorium purpureum, Oypsophila prostrata, 
Phygelius .capensis , Polemonium Bichardsoni, Rudbeckia 
purpurea, Spigelia Marilandica, Styrax japoniea, Thalic- 
trum flavum. Withenia origanifolia is a new, very 
highly praised creeper which I shall try.' I cannot find 
this creeper mentioned in any of my gardening books. 
Phormium tenax (the New Zealand Flax) makes a very 
handsome tub plant for a bare entrance drive or large 
terrace. If treated like the Agapanthus, in full sun, it 
flowers. 

Two or three years ago, when I knew nothing about 
Roses, a very clever Rose grower, who had devoted his 
life to them, wrote me out the following list, with the 



DECEMBER 



141 



assurance that every one of them was worth having: 'A 
selection of Roses which, in ground well dug and lib 
erally fed with farmyard manure, sheltered but not over- 
shadowed, like Phyllis, "never fail to please." Hybrid 
Perpetuals: Duke of Edinburgh, Etienne Levet, 
General Jacqueminot, Her Majesty, Jules Margottin, 
Margaret Dickson, Mrs. John Laing, Merveille de 
Lyon, Paul Neyron, Ulrich Briinner. Hybrid Teas : 
Captain Christy, Grace Darling, Gustave Regis, Lady 
Mary Fitzwilliam, La France, Viscountess Folkestone, 
Caroline Testout. Teas : Anna Ollivier, Bouquet d'Or, 
Homere, Madame de Watteville, Madame Falcot, 
Madame Hoste, Marie Van Houtte, Perles des Jardins. 
Polyantha: Cecile Brunner, Perle d'Or.' 

I have a near neighbour who is a most successful 
Rose grower. Walking through his beautifully kept 
beds the other day, I noted that the centre parts of the 
plant, both in standards and dwarfs, had some bracken 
twisted into them. This is a great protection against 
the coming frosts. For anyone who cares about the 
choicer Ferns, it is a protection to them, too, to have 
their own leaves twisted round them in the shape of a 
knob of hair on a woman's head, firmly tucking in the 
ends so that the winds of March may not untwist them. 

December 21st. — The perennial and ever -recurrent 
aspect of the London streets at this time of year always 
reminds me of the old happy Christmas holidays and of 
long walks with three young gentlemen lately returned 
home, who then considered it my chief defect that I had 
not three arms. The mental attitude which I tried to 
instil into them was to enjoy looking in at the shop- 
windows rather than to admire or, above all, wish to 
possess the extraordinary amount of rubbish displayed 
inside, which, though it looked well enough arranged in 
redundant heaps, would, I thought, seem to them mere 



i 4 2 MORE POT-POURRI 

money wasted in poor, useless stuff if they brought it 
home. I dare say I am prejudiced in these matters, 
having always had a very great dislike to wholesale 
present- giving at fixed anniversaries, whether birthdays, 
Christmas, or New Year. 

I think that while children are quite small — say, up 
to the age of ten or twelve — we might leave the matter 
as it stands at present, as the said redundant heap on 
the nursery floor may give a peculiar pleasure of its 
own. But this is quite different from an obligatory 
present -giving to all sorts of people — servants and 
dependents, grown-up children, fathers, mothers, and 
old grannies. We all know houses where this kind of 
thing is much practised, and where, year after year, it 
is an immense toil to the givers, and but very little 
appreciated by the receivers. It is almost laughable, 
the way that people who are apparently the greatest 
supporters of this custom of present -giving at stated 
times groan over the trouble and expense it entails, and 
congratulate themselves and each other when the ter- 
rible Christmas fortnight is at an end. 

This fashion of giving presents to all sorts of 
promiscuous people at special times has immensely 
increased ■ since my childhood, when it was only 
beginning — imported no doubt, as far as Christmas is 
concerned, from Germany. The French, who keep their 
rubbish -giving for the New Year, confine themselves 
almost entirely to flowers and bonbons, which, if 
equally useless, have at least the merit of passing away 
and of not crowding up our chimneypieces and writing- 
tables. The turning of every shop into a bazaar ; the 
display of meat, game, and turkeys on the outside of 
shops ; the spending of a disproportionate amount of 
money on feasting — all this is comparatively recent. I 
can quite well remember, as a girl, the excitement of 



DECEMBER 



H3 



first decorating a church. This developed into a fashion 
with the High Church party, and is not an old custom. 
I know one old clergyman who to this day refuses to 
allow any Christmas decorations, and says : 'Why 
desecrate my church with evergreens ? ' If it has any 
antiquity it is a Pagan revival, like flowers for the dead. 
It may be pretty and desirable, or the contrary, but it 
is not Old English, though the Druids may have been 
as fond of mistletoe as they were of oaks. 

To return to present -giving at anniversaries. I am 
more than willing to admit, as I have already said, that 
quite young children get considerable pleasure out of 
this custom, but even in their case it has distinct draw- 
backs. When children receive too many presents at the 
same time, it is apt to encourage criticism and ingrati- 
tude ; and having to thank for what they do not want 
or already possess is too early a training in what might 
seem to a child hypocrisy. Not to look a gift horse in 
the mouth is excellent and reasonable to those who 
understand it, but neither in word nor idea does it 
convey anything to a child's mind. I heard two 
delicious child anecdotes last winter. One was of a 
village schoolboy helping to decorate a Christmas tree 
for himself and his schoolfellows. He made a touching 
appeal to the kind but tired lady who was doing the 
same : ' Please, teacher, if you have anything to do with 
it, will you see that I get something that is not a pocket 
handkerchief? I've got seven already!' Sad to say, 
his eighth pocket handkerchief had been assigned to 
him, and he had to put up with it. The other story 
was of a rich little lady who was taken to a neighbour's 
Christmas tree. On receiving a new doll, she said to 
her mother : ' Really, I don't know, mother, what I 
shall do with this doll. I have so many already, how 
can I find room for her?' 



144 MORE POT-POURRI 

It goes against my sense of the fitness of things to 
put either charity or affection into a treadmill, and force 
people to give presents at a particular fixed time. Do 
we not all know the phraseology so often heard in the 
shops : ' Will this do ? Does it look enough ? It won't 
be much use, but that doesn't matter. Oh ! here's a 
new book that will do for So-and-so.' I heard of a 
wretched lady, with rather well-known tastes in one 
direction, who last Christmas received seven copies of 
one book. Then there are the presents for dependents, 
which are chosen in imitation of the luxuries of the 
master and mistress, — the sham jewel brooch or the 
shoddy Gladstone bag, which costs fifteen shillings and 
is supposed to ' look like thirty.' All this kind of thing 
seems to me false, and many people I know are ready 
enough to acknowledge what a slavery it is and how 
undesirable. Some reconcile themselves to the folly by 
saying : ' Well, it can't be helped, and it's good for 
trade.' Even if this kind of artificial demand is really 
good for trade, which many doubt, this has nothing to 
do with whether it has a good or a bad effect on 
ourselves, on our children, and on those who sur- 
round us. 

The giving of wedding presents, though it is continu- 
ally referred to as a tax, is so essentially useful to the 
receivers when judiciously done that I not only say 
nothing against it, but think nothing against it. I 
remember, in the early 'sixties, a cousin who was the 
victim of twenty -seven ormolu inkstands; but the prac- 
ticalness of the present day solves the difficulty of dupli- 
cates, as the young people, without the smallest conceal- 
ment, sell or exchange what they do not care about. 

Though few people may agree with my abuse of whole- 
sale present -giving at anniversaries, I think no one will 
deny that it tends to destroy some of the most delightful 



DECEMBER 145 

outward expressions of feeling that can exist between 
civilised human beings. To take the trouble to find out 
what somebody really wants ; to be struck by something 
beautiful, and to know to whom to give it ; to supply a 
real want to those who cannot afford it for themselves ; 
to give anything, however trifling, as a remembrance — 
all these are the gentle sweeteners of life, and need none 
of those goading reminders which come with the return 
of anniversaries. And to come to the more selfish aspect 
of the question. Instead of the callousness, and almost 
fatigue, in consequence of receiving a great number of 
presents at once, is there not a delight that lasts through 
life, until we are quite old, at suddenly receiving a sym- 
pathetic and unexpected gift ? 

A great many people use holly and evergreens at 
Christmas -time to stick about the room in empty vases, 
round pictures, etc. But they hardly ever take the 
trouble to peel their stalks and put them in water, 
though — especially with holly — this makes all the dif- 
ference as regards the retaining of its freshness; and if 
arranged in a glass, not too thickly, it looks much more 
beautiful, and does not acquire a dusty, degraded appear- 
ance before New Year's Day. I cannot bear to see the 
poor evergreens shrivelling in the hot rooms. We used 
to have hardly any Holly berries in the garden here, but 
by judicious pruning in February we now get quantities 
of a very fine kind. 

One of my many correspondents wrote : ' If you are 
interested in the lighting of country houses, I can recom- 
mend the acetylene gas which our gardener makes for us. 
We have used it for over a year, and find it quite charm- 
ing — a brilliant light, delightful to read by, cool, clean, 
and harmless to silver, flowers, and clothes, and safe, so 
far as our experience goes. Ours is the ' 'pure acetylene, ' ' 
made by Raol Picket's patent, and not the explosive kind.' 



I4 6 MORE POT-POURRI 

December 22nd. — After all the fine, mild weather I 
have been mentioning, it suddenly began to freeze, with 
hard, cold, moonlight nights. So to-day I thought of 
my little birds. I now find it prettier and less trouble, 
instead of hanging the string with cocoanut and suet 
from a window or a stiff cross-bar, to arrange it in the 
following way: I cut a big branch, lopping it more or 
less, and push it through the hole of a French iron 
garden -table, that I happen to have, which holds an 
umbrella in summer. On the other side of the house I 
stick a similar branch into the ground. On these I hang, 
Christmas-tree fashion, some pieces of suet and a tallow 
candle — the old 'dip' — a cocoanut with a hole cut, not at 
the bottom as I recommended before, but in the side, 
large enough for the Tom -tits to sit on the edge and 
peck inside, and yet roofed enough to prevent the rain- 
water collecting in it. They seem to have remembered 
the feeding from last year, as they began at the piece of 
suet at once. On the table below I used to put a basin 
to hold crumbs and scraps from meals — rice, milk, any- 
thing almost, for the other birds who will not eat either 
the fat or the cocoanut. But I found this was such a 
great temptation to the cats and dogs of the establish- 
ment, who -became most extraordinarily acrobatic in the 
methods by which they got on to the table, that I had to 
devise wiring the saucer of a flower -pot and so hanging 
it on to the most extended branch, out of reach of the 
cleverest of Miss Pussies. If once it freezes very hard, 
I put out bowls of tepid water. This the birds much 
appreciate. 

December 23rd. — I have been out for a walk long 
after dark — or, rather, long after sunset, for the moon 
was shining bright in the cold indigo sky. At all times 
of year walking by moonlight gives me exquisite delight. 
Is it because I have done it so rarely, or because of the 



DECEMBER 147 

great beauty and mystery of it all ? I went along our 
high road, the road along which Nelson travelled to 
Portsmouth on his way to Trafalgar, never to return. 
This evening it shone white and dry in the moonlight, 
and the tall black telegraph-poles — double the height 
and strength of those they replaced a few years ago, 
and which I have always hated for their aggressive size 
by daylight — in the winter moonlight only seemed to 
me straight and strong, and as if proud to support that 
wonderful network of wires which now encompasses the 
entire globe, annihilating time and making the far and 
the near as one, ceaselessly carrying those messages of 
happiness and despair, life and death, which, in the 
space of a moment, in the opening of an envelope, 
bring sorrow or joy to many a home. Something of 
the mystery of it all the wires sang to me to-night, 
with iEolian sounds different from any I have ever 
heard, on this one of the last evenings of a year that 
is nearly gone. By my lonely fireside, this poem came 
to my recollection : 

The old friends, the old friends, 

We loved when we were young, 
With sunshine on their faces 

And music on their tongue ! 
The bees are in the Almond flower, 

The birds renew their strain ; 
But the old friends once lost to us 

Can never come again. 

The old friends, the old friends, 

Their brow is lined with care; 
They've furrows in the faded cheek 

And silver in the hair; 
But to me they are the old friends still, 

In jfouth and bloom the same 
As when we drove the flying ball 

Or shouted in the game. 



148 MORE POT-POURRI 

The old men, the old men, 

How slow they creep along ! 
How naughtily we scoffed at them 

In days when we were young ! 
Their prosing and their dosing, 

Their prate of times gone by, 
Their shiver like an aspen-leaf 

If but a breath went by. 

But we, we are the old men now; 

Our blood is faint and chill ; 
We cannot leap the mighty brook 

Or climb the break-neck hill. 
We maunder down the shortest cuts, 

We rest on stick or stile, 
And the young men, half ashamed to laugh, 

Yet pass us with a smile. 

But the young men, the young men, 

Their strength is fair to see ; 
The straight back and the springy stride, 

The eye as falcon free ; 
They shout above the frolic wind 

As up the hill they go ; 
But though so high above us now, 

They soon shall be as low. 

Oh! weary, weary, drag the years, 
• As life draws near the end ; 
And sadly, sadly, fall the tears 

For loss of love and friend. 
But we'll not doubt there's good about 

In all of human kind ; 
So here's a health, before we go, 

To those we leave behind! 

December 24th. — It is so curious after a full life to 
be alone on Christmas eve. But, of course, it was my 
own choice, and not necessary. I could have gone 
away, but I love these winter afternoons and the long 
evenings at home. It is also, I think, essential wis- 



DECEMBER 149 

dom that the old should learn to live alone without 
depression, and, above all, without that far more deadly 
thing — ennui. I have no doubt that training for old 
age, to avoid being a bore and a burden to others, is 
as desirable as any other form of education. The 
changes brought about by circumstances mean, in a 
sort of way, a new birth, and one has to discover for 
oneself the best methods of readjusting the details of 
one's life. I find this poem written in one of my 
notebooks many years ago by a man whom I had 
known from childhood. Though he was not the 
author, the poem represented his feelings rather than 
mine. It has truth in it, but it has also a touch of 
bitterness, which appealed, no doubt, to a man who 
had reaped nothing but life's failure. He had always 
lived up in balloons of his own imaginings, believing 
in ultimate wealth, and having the power to draw 
forth money from others, merely to lose it. He died 
in old age and poverty, in a garret at Venice. Do we 
reap as we sow? Very often; not alwaj r s. I am sure 
that, up to now, I have never got back in mushrooms 
what I have spent in spawn. Of course the fault is 
mine ; I know that. 

Laugh, and the world laughs with you; 

Weep, and you weep alone, 
For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth — 

It has sorrows enough of its own. 
Sing, and the hills will answer; 

Sigh, it is lost in air, 
For the echoes bound to a joyous sound — 

They shrink from the voice of care. 

Rejoice, and men will seek you; 
Grieve, and they all will go, 
For they want full measure of all your pleasure — 
They do not heed your woe. 



150 MORE POT-POURRI 

Be glad, and your friends are many; 

Be sad, and you lose them all, 
For none will decline your nectared wine — 

Alone, you must drink life's gall. 

Feast, and your halls are crowded; 

Fast, and the world goes by; 
Succeed and give ; it will help you live — 

No man can help you die. 
There is room in the halls of pleasure 

For a long and lordly train, 
But one by one we must all pass on 

Through the narrow aisles of pain. 

I like ' Bethia HardacreV song better, and to me the 
spirit is truer: 

Bring me the book whose pages teach 
The fortitude the Stoics preach ; 
Bring me the tome within whose scope 
There lies the quickening of dead hope; 
Bring me the comfort of a mind 
That good in every ill can find, 
And of a heart that is content 
With its desire's relinquishment. 



Receipts 

A kind friend sent me to-night half a pumpkin — a 
real French pumpkin. (See Vilmorin's 'Vegetable Gar- 
den,' Potiron jaune gros.) It was grown near here, and 
had kept perfectly. It was moist, and a beautiful apri- 
cot colour inside. I wonder always why the only pump- 
kin grown in England is the vegetable marrow. Sutton 
feebly recommends others in his book, but hardly makes 
enough of them as useful winter vegetables. Here is a 
true French receipt for Pumpkin Soup. Cut up the 
slices of pumpkin (say, about half a large one), and boil 
them in water. When well cooked, strain off the water 



DECEMBER 151 

and pass the pulp through a sieve. Boil half a pint of 
milk, add a piece of butter, very little salt, and a good 
tablespoonful of castor sugar. Pour this boiling milk 
on to the pumpkin pulp. Let it boil a few minutes. 
The soup must be thick, and small fried crusts should be 
sent up with it. This receipt is enough for two people. 
Dried vegetable marrow is not supposed to be so good, 
but I had some soup to-night, prepared exactly in the 
same way, from a large dried vegetable marrow, and it 
was excellent, though it had not quite so much flavour. 

All through the last month my salads have been 
nearly as good as in summer, from tarragon and chive 
tops being forced in the greenhouse. Parsley and cher- 
vil are still good out of doors. When once one has 
become used to the herbs in salad, it does seem so taste- 
less without them. 

Lentil Toast. — Four to six ounces of lentils, one 
ounce of butter, water, and slices of buttered toast. 
Look over and thoroughly rinse the lentils, and put 
them into a small saucepan with enough water to well 
cover them. Cook slowly till they are tender and the 
water all absorbed (ten to twenty minutes). Add but- 
ter, pepper, and salt; spread thickly on the hot, buttered 
toast, and serve with mint sauce. Suitable as a supper 
or breakfast dish. 

Green and White Haricot Beans. — Soak in cold 
water for twelve or even twenty -four hours, then put 
them into boiling water, with a little salt and two 
minced shallots. Cook till tender, but not mashed. 
They will take from two to two and a half hours, and 
must be watched. A bunch of herbs and a bacon bone, 
or a little raw bacon, greatly improve the flavour, but can 
easily be omitted. Before dishing up, toss them in a 
little butter and serve very hot. Thin English melted 
butter, with chopped parsley, can be used as a change. 



i 5 2 MORE POT-POURRI 

It is worth while to know that with all hard vegeta- 
bles—peas, beans, lentils, etc.— if they have not been 
soaked the day before, the way to boil them slowly is to 
add every now and then a tablespoonful of cold water. 
The same thing applies to dried fruit. 

To Roast a Fine Large Volaille (Chicken or capon 
or young turkey) . — Take some very fat bacon or a good 
tablespoonful of good grease (clarified fat of beef or 
pork kidney, half and half). Dissolve it in a very deep 
copper stewpan, and let it get hot, but not very hot. 
Pat the chicken into it, having previously well trussed 
it; chop up the liver and gizzard with some unsmoked 
raw bacon, and insert this in the bird. Put the lid on, 
and let it braise gently, on top of the hot-plate, by a 
slow fire. The chicken ought to produce enough mois- 
ture by itself to prevent it from roasting too fast. 
Should this be deficient, add a very little stock. After 
from thirty to forty minutes turn the fowl over, with the 
breast to the bottom of the pot, so that it gets a little 
coloured in its turn. The largest fowl takes an hour 
and a quarter. When done, remove it on to a dish. 
Add a little stock to the brown glaze that adheres to the 
stewpan, having previously removed the grease with a 
spoon. Pour it round the fowl or into a sauce-boat, 
and serve with the fowl. 

An excellent way of making a next -day dish out of 
roast turkey is one I saw many years ago in a French 
restaurant. 

Ailerons de Dinde aux Navets. — Take the wing- 
bones and a portion of the legs of a roast turkey, and 
divide them into reasonable -sized pieces. Take some 
cold stock which has been already well flavoured with 
vegetables, and add a little more onion, cut fine. Stew 
by the side of the stove till the meat is tender, not 
broken away. Add a good, large quantity of turnips, 



DECEMBER 153 

cut into small dice, and a very small amount of burnt 
sugar, pepper, and salt. Stew all together till the tur- 
nips are quite cooked (which depends a good deal on the 
quality of the turnips) and the stock reduced. Serve in 
a hash dish. The whole can also be cooked in a small 
fireproof casserole, and served in that, with a clean nap- 
kin round it. The excellence of this dish depends on 
the goodness of the stock and very slow cooking. 

Raw Liver of Chickens, chopped up with a little 
bacon fat and fried, then put onto toast with pepper and 
salt, is a good breakfast dish or savoury. 



JANUARY, 1899 

Difficulties of growing Daphne indica — Journey last year to Ireland 
— Cutting down and re-planting trees — Apples — Skimmed milk 
— Manure heaps — Winter Honeysuckle — Botanical Gardens in 
Dublin — Botticelli's drawings — Tissot's Bible — Rippingille's 
patent stove — Blue flowers — ' Snowdrop-time ' — ' The Sun-chil- 
dren's Budget' — Floral notes from 'The Scotsman' — Receipts. 

January 5th. — After a white frost in the morning, 
we have had a day which, except for its shortness, we 
should be satisfied with and think beautiful in early 
spring. These mild, sunny winter days do great harm 
in prematurely forcing growth, but I know few things 
which it would be more difficult to wish non-existent. 
They make up to me for so many of our winter trials — 
fog and cold and darkness. I would not change them 
for the 'sunny south,' where sunshine is a right, while 
here it comes as a most gracious gift — all the more 
appreciated because it appears unexpectedly and lasts 
such a short time. 

I have a plant of Daphne indica, one of my favourite 
winter flowers, in my greenhouse now. It is in flower 
and smelling deliciously, but does not look at all satis- 
factory, although it was only bought last year. It was 
put out of doors last summer, as it ought to be, but was 
allowed to get dry. It made no growth ; it is leggy, 
drawn up, and the leaves are yellow, which, with hard- 
wooded plants, generally means over -watering in winter. 
I have tried for years to grow these Daphnes, but they 
are difficult to strike, difficult to grow, and have a quite 
extraordinary love of dying without any very obvious 

(154) 



JANUARY i 55 

reason. I must devote myself to finding out, if possible, 
what the reason is. I see that Mr. Smee, in his book 
'My Garden,' says they did the same with him. 

I have just gathered three beautiful, full white buds 
off a Niphetos Rose in the conservatory next the draw- 
ing-room. It is blooming extra early this year. 

January 6th. — Fate caused me to go to Ireland about 
this time last year. I dreaded the long night journey 
and the arrival on the gray winter morning. But were 
the steamers far less splendid sea -boats than they are, 
and the waves every day as stormy as they sometimes 
are, I think it still would be well worth while for any 
garden -fancier to visit Ireland in January, if only to 
admire and enjoy the luxuriant green of the evergreens 
and the beauty of the winter -flowering shrubs. I had 
never seen Garry a elKptica in full beauty before. It had 
catkins six or seven inches long, flowering from end to 
end, one little flower growing out of the other like a 
baby chain made with cowslips. The Jasmlnum nudi- 
florum was not a flowering branch here and there, as in 
England, but one sheet of brilliant yellow flowers. This 
beautiful plant is very easy to propagate by laying some 
of the branches along the ground and covering them 
with earth. In six or seven months they will have made 
good root, and can be taken up and planted where de- 
sired. One house I saw in the neighbourhood of Dublin 
was covered on its southern side with the Clematis cir- 
rliosa, or winter -flowering Clematis, from Algiers. The 
house was an old one, much frequented by John Wesley 
and mentioned in Southey's Life. On one of the thick, 
strong walls, inside, was the following inscription 
(translated, I believe, from the German) : 

The Angels, from their throne on high, 
Look down on us with pitying eye, 



156 MORE POT-POURRI 

That where we are but passing guests 
We build such strong and solid nests, 
And where we hope to dwell for aye 
We scarce take heed a stone to lay. 

There is a strong, practical common-sense in the lines 
which would have appealed to Wesley's instincts. 

I saw at Howth a beautiful plant of the Desfontainea 
spinosa, with its foliage so like the Holly and its hand- 
some flowers in the form of a tube, bright scarlet, tipped 
with yellow. This I had never seen flowering before, 
and one is not likely to come across it except under cir- 
cumstances as favourable as those which belong to the 
Irish climate or to the west coast of Lancashire and 
Scotland. It seems almost a platitude to say that it is 
worth while going to Ireland to see the great beauty of 
the Irish Yew, one of the forms of the Common Yew, 
Taxus fastigiata. In old days in Ireland, I am told, it 
was called the Florence Court Yew, from Florence Court, 
where it was raised from seed about 1780. Seeds of this 
variety produce for the most part only the Common 
Yew, though some vary in form and tint. All the 
plants in cultivation are of the female sex, according to 
Loudon. 

Whatever may be the climatic disadvantages of Ire- 
land, such as sunlessness and damp, the air remains 
clear and pure, the soil is unexhausted, and it is free 
from many of the agricultural difficulties of other coun- 
tries. In the south, at any rate, there are no manufac- 
tures, no smoke, no coal-mines, none of those things 
which injure the atmosphere in parts of England, and 
make the cultivation of vegetables and flowers difficult 
or even impossible. As, in the troubles of individuals, 
few things help more than sympathy with and an effort 
to understand the trials of others, so it is, I think, 
among nations. If Ireland could turn her attention to 



JANUARY i 57 

the trials England has gone through at various epochs 
of her history, of a kind which Ireland, through the 
very nature of circumstances, has escaped, there would 
be less of that one-sided judgment which inclines to 
think that all the woes of Ireland are peculiarly her own, 
yet solely due to the rule of the English. Troubles and 
difficulties come to all nations alike, and certainly Eng- 
land herself is in no way exempt. Witness, for in- 
stance, the terrible misery produced by the introduction 
of machinery, the cotton famines, and even the legisla- 
tion of recent days which stopped the importation of 
rags for fear of the cholera. Let those who care for a 
vivid picture of such times read an old, forgotten novel 
by Benjamin Disraeli, written in the early part of this 
reign and called 'Sybil.' 

During a short excursion into the country by rail, I 
was shocked to see how the trees, already less plentiful 
than they ought to be, proclaimed that sure sign of ne- 
glect — they were almost invariably covered with Ivy. 
This beautiful semi -parasitical plant is very picturesque, 
and many people have a sentimental love for it from its 
greenness in winter ; but it destroys the trees, and, 
though it may hasten the end of very old trees to cut the 
Ivy down suddenly, it should always be killed on young 
trees — by cutting it through the stem at the base and 
allowing it to perish and fall away. I am told that one 
of the curious effects of the last Land Act is that the 
proprietors of land imagine they have an unlimited 
right to cut down their trees, without considering the 
evil effects this will have on the future climate and 
wealth of their country. As it is, Ireland has been far 
too much deprived of her forests in the past, and I, with 
the tyranny of one who imagines that she understands 
everybody's affairs better than they do themselves, 
should make the cutting down of trees penal. The wise 



158 MORE POT-POURRI 

old Dutch settlers at the Cape understood this subject 
well. They made a law which enforced that every man 
who cut down one tree should plant two in its stead. 
Everybody who has a little plot of land should never 
fail every autumn to plant some acorns, beech- nuts, 
chestnuts, etc. Many trees will also strike from cuttings 
in spring, notably all the Willow tribe, which grow the 
moment they are stuck into the ground. If I were a 
young Irishman, I should delight in thus renewing the 
woods and copses of my country. We know how the 
Irish love the soil, and the feeling is not badly expressed 
in this little poem, which I copied from an English 
newspaper : 

Often I wish that I might be, 

In this divinest weather, 
Among my father's fields — ah me! 

And he and I together. 

Below the mountains, fair and dim, 

My father's fields are spreading: 
I'd rather tread the sward with him 

Than dance at any wedding. 

Oh, green and fresh your English sod, 

With daisies sprinkled over, 
But greener far were the fields I trod 

That foamed with Irish clover. 

Oh, well your skylark cleaves the blue 

To bid the sun good-morrow! 
'Tis not the bonny song I knew 

Above an Irish furrow. 

And often, often, I'm longing still, 

In this all -golden weather, 
For my father's face by an Irish hill, 

And he and I together. 

One of the most beautiful colour -effects I saw in Ire- 
land was a small lake planted with great clumps of Dog- 



JANUARY 159 

wood, with its crimson branches beside the bright yellow 
of the Golden Willow. 

A great deal might be done by a study of the most 
suitable Apple trees to grow in Ireland. There seemed 
to me no reason why thej- should not do as well there as 
in Herefordshire or Normandy, but I have been since 
told that the want of sun does interfere with their ripen- 
ing. This, however, only means that extra study must 
be given as to which kinds should be planted. The chief 
requirements of Apple trees are slight pruning in the 
winter and tying round the stem in October a band of 
sticky paper, to prevent the female moth, who has no 
wings, from crawling up and laying her eggs in the 
branches, to come to life the following spring and devour 
leaves and blossoms. Apples are most excellent, whole- 
some food. An Apple is quite as nourishing as a Potato, 
and a roast Apple, with brown sugar, is a far more pal- 
atable dinner for a sick child. Apples very likely might 
be plentiful in seasons when Potatoes did badly, and in 
districts near to markets they would fetch a much more 
fancy price. The following I must have copied out of 
some old book or newspaper : ' Chemically, the Apple 
is composed of vegetable fibre, albumen, sugar, gum, 
chlorophyll, malic acid, gallic acid, lime, and much 
water. Furthermore, the Apple contains a larger per- 
centage of phosphorus than any other fruit or vegetable. 
This phosphorus, says the "Family Doctor," is admir- 
ably adapted for renewing the essential nervous matter, 
lethicin, of the brain and spinal cord. It is perhaps for 
the same reason, rudely understood, that old Scandina- 
vian traditions represent the Apple as the food of the 
gods, who, when they felt themselves to be growing 
feeble and infirm, resorted to this fruit for renewing 
their powers of mind and body. Also the acids of the 
Apple are of great use for men of sedentary habits whose 



160 MORE POT-POURRI 

livers are sluggish in action, these acids serving to elimi- 
nate from the body noxious matters which, if retained, 
would make the brain heavy and dull, or bring about 
jaundice or skin eruptions, and other allied troubles. 
Some such experience must have led to our custom of 
taking Apple sauce with roast pork, rich goose, and like 
dishes. The malic acid of ripe Apples, either raw or 
cooked, will neutralise any excess of chalky matter en- 
gendered by eating too much meat. It is also the fact 
that such fresh fruit as the Apple, the Pear, the Plum, 
when taken ripe and without sugar, diminish acidity in 
the stomach, rather than provoke it. Their vegetable 
salts and juices are converted into alkaline carbonates, 
which tend to counteract acidity. A ripe, raw Apple is 
one of the easiest vegetable substances for the stomach 
to deal with, the whole process of its digestion being 
completed in eighty -five minutes. Gerarde found that 
the "pulpe of roasted Apples mixed in a wine quart of 
faire water, and labored together until it comes to be as 
Apples and ale — which we call lambes-wool — never fail- 
eth in certain diseases of the raines, which myself hath 
often proved, and gained thereby both crownes and 
credit. The paring of an Apple cut somewhat thick, 
and the inside whereof is laid to hot, burning, or run- 
ning eyes at night, when the party goes to bed, and is 
tied or bound to the same, doth help the trouble very 
speedily, and contrary to expectations — an excellent 
secret." ' 

Many people must have asked themselves how, in the 
old days long ago, before the Potato came from America, 
even the sparse population of Ireland fed itself. I feel 
no doubt that the good monks who brought the art of 
illuminating and of making the lovely old carved crosses, 
also grew their vegetables, and did not find the climate 
unfavourable. Probably, however, no other vegetable 



JANUARY 161 

will ever now take the place, as an article of food, of the 
much -loved Potato; nor is this in any way to be desired. 
Curiously enough, the other day a great London physi- 
cian remarked to me, quite independently of Ireland and 
its troubles, that in his estimation the ideal food for 
the human race was Potatoes and skimmed or separated 
milk, all the nourishing properties of milk being there, 
the cream containing nothing but the fat, which stout 
people are better without. It is quite curious how few 
even educated people know or believe this. Skimmed or 
separated milk is constantly thrown away as useless, or 
given to the pigs ; whereas it is very much better for 
adults than new milk, if they are eating other foods. 

Modern science has made it quite easy, by using pre- 
ventives in time, to keep down the Potato disease ; 
but, in spite of all this, certain losses of crops are sure 
to occur, and the all -important thing is to cultivate the 
vegetables which would probably succeed best in the 
mild, wet autumns so dangerous to the Potato crop. 

Where land and manure are forthcoming, seeds — 
which should be of the best — represent the principal 
outlay in the growing of vegetables. It is much more 
prudent to make many sowings in succession than to 
sow a great quantity at once. It is said that a Cabbage 
may grow anywhere and anyhow, that it will thrive on 
any soil, and that the seed may be sown every day in the 
year. All this is nearly true, and proves that we have a 
wonderful plant to deal with, and that it is one of man's 
best friends. Linnaeus, the great botanist, mentions 
that he found it the only vegetable growing on the bor- 
ders of the Arctic Circle. The Cabbage has one persis- 
tent plague only, and that is club or anbury, for which 
there is no direct remedy or preventive known ; and the 
best indirect way of fighting the enemy is our old friend 
elbow-grease, or hard work. The crop should constantly 



162 MORE POT-POURRI 

be moved ; never grown twice in the same place, either 
as a seed-bed or planted out, without well digging or 
tilling the ground, putting it to other uses and well ma- 
nuring it. All the Cabbage tribe are great consumers, 
hence the need for abundant manuring. Wherever there 
are manure heaps near houses or stables, or in farm- 
yards, it is very desirable to sink a tub in the ground on 
the lowest side of the heap, where the manure has a ten- 
dency to drain, cutting out a nick in the tub to guide in 
the liquid, which can be constantly emptied out with a 
can. This liquid makes very valuable nourishment for 
young vegetables, pot -plants, and, in fact, all garden 
produce — strength in youth being naturally a great help 
to the whole crop. Besides its usefulness, this prevents 
the untidy wasting of a manure heap. 

I am very ignorant of Irish affairs in general, but I 
listened with extreme interest to all that I could hear of 
the cooperative movement now being carried out by so 
many farmers in Ireland. I have since kept myself 
informed in the matter by taking in that excellent 
little weekly paper ' The Irish Homestead. 7 Mr. William 
Lawler, in a long poem in the 'London Year- Book' for 
1898, begins a paragraph on Ireland, of which the first 
lines, at any rate, do not inappropriately express my 
wishes and my hopes for the cooperation of Irish 
industries : 

Oh, Ireland, when your children shall abate 
Their love of captious things to study great ; 
When you shall let your aspirations lie 
Far less in Statecraft than in Industry ; 

Then shall your people prosper and advance. 

A charming shrub, and new to me, is Escallonia 
pterocladon, which I saw growing on the walls of a 



JANUARY 163 

house in Ireland ; it was covered in this midwinter time 
with white flowers rather like a large Privet. 

I saw a pretty dinner -table decoration consisting of 
a quantity of Jasminum nudiflorum, picked and put in 
small glasses with leaves from greenhouse plants. Also 
an effective decoration was of Geranium flowers (Pelar- 
goniums, red or pink), arranged in saucers full of moss 
and — in between these — narrow, pointed glasses with 
branches of pink Begonias. A little winter-flowering 
Begonia, called Gloire de Lorraine, has lately come into 
fashion. What a term for a flower ! But it is true, and 
plants of this Begonia make a charming table decoration 
at a time of year when flowers are scarce. They look 
best growing in pots. Roman Hyacinths in glasses 
could be placed between, and pink shades used for the 
candles ; or, for a small table, one plant in the middle 
would be enough. The colour, the growth, the shape 
of the leaves, all make it charming. I do not yet know 
if it is difficult to grow, as I have only lately bought a 
plant. 

I did not see it in Ireland, but a shrub that should 
never be omitted from any garden, small or large, is 
Lonicera fragrantissima. It begins to flower in January, 
and continues through February and March. Like 
every flower or shrub I know, a little care — such as 
pruning and mulching — improves its flowering powers. 
I had it here in a neglected state in a shrubbery for 
years. I only knew its pretty green leaves,' and never 
guessed what it was or its early -flowering qualities. 
But my gardening ignorance in those days was supreme. 

In spite of the time of year, I had pleasant days in 
Dublin at the College Botanical Garden, and also at 
Glasnevin, the 'Kew of Dublin.' The little Irises, Sty- 
losa alba and speciosa, were flowering well. They must 
be starved ; for if their foliage is good, it means no 



164 MORE POT-POURRI 

flowers. Many kinds of Hellebores were coming into 
bloom, some of which I had never seen before. The 
warm, damp winters are very favourable to January- 
flowering plants, and we can scarcely expect to copy 
them in Surrey. The rather rare and interesting 
Daphne blagayana was growing to a great size, and cov- 
ered with flowers, at Glasnevin. Mr. Robinson describes 
it as a 'beautiful, dwarf Alpine shrub of easy growth.' 
I have not found it at all easy ; in fact, two out of the 
three plants I had have died, and the third looks rather 
ill. But I think I tried to grow it too much in the sun; 
it also wants pegging down every year after flowering. 

In a country house in Ireland, I saw last year for the 
first time the reproductions, sanctioned by the Berlin 
Government, of Botticelli's illustrations of Dante. I 
never knew before that such things existed, or that out- 
line book -illustration of that kind was so old. The 
original drawings had belonged to Lord Ashburnham's 
collection, and we in England allowed them to be bought 
at his sale by the German Government for 25,000Z. — an 
unfortunate result of the law, which never allowed the 
authorities either of the Print room in the British Mu- 
seum or of the National Gallery to keep any money in 
hand. These drawings are curious rather than very 
beautiful, and many of them are unfinished. In the 
illustrations of Hell and Purgatory, Botticelli glories in 
detail ; but the ' Paradiso' is left almost entirely to the 
imagination. Dante and Beatrix surrounded by a circle, 
he himself appearing often blinded by the rays of light, 
the whole surrounded by more circles ; this is all he 
seems to have dared attempt. 

In this same house, I was able to turn from these 
lineal illustrations of the fifteenth century, with their 
delicate, though meagre, draughtsmanship, to the latest 
and richest of modern illustrations, the finest colour- 



JANUARY 165 

printing that France has been able to produce — the 
Tissot Bible. It was not otherwise than satisfactory to 
realise that, however much art may have in some re- 
spects deteriorated, these illustrations, artistically and 
mechanically, surpassed those particular drawings of the 
Middle Ages, though the comparison is an unfair one. 
It would be immensely interesting to know what will be 
thought of this Tissot Bible in a hundred years. 

January 6th. — I always order all the kitchen garden 
seeds during January. My method is this — the gardener 
marks Sutton's list, and then brings it to me to alter or 
add to it any out-of-the-way vegetable. It is most im- 
portant to go through the catalogues, and order seeds 
early in this month. This enables you to get first 
choice, and you are then prepared for any kind of 
weather, and can sow early if desirable. Also it is easy 
to make up omissions later on, while still not too late. 
For all the flower seeds that are the result of careful cul- 
tivation — such as Sweet Peas, Mignonette, Asters, Sal- 
piglossis, and so on — the great nurserymen cannot, of 
course, be surpassed in excellence. But for small people 
who grow a variety of flowers they are very expensive, 
as they only sell large packets of seeds, have few things 
out of the common, and hardly any interesting peren- 
nials at all. I said before and continue to say that, for 
all uncommon seeds, there is one man without any rival 
so far as I know, and that is Mr. Thompson, of Ipswich. 
His catalogue alone is most descriptive and instructive. 
It is the only catalogue I know arranged simply and 
alphabetically, with a column telling whether the plants 
are hardy or half-hardy, tender or perennial, greenhouse, 
stove, etc. It also is the only catalogue which gives the 
approximate height that the plant ought to reach when 
grown to perfection. But, of course, this varies im- 
mensely, as he says himself, with the character of the 



166 MORE POT-POURRI 

soil and situation in which they are cultivated, especially 
if grown in pots. With this list and a careful reference 
from the things named to the more detailed accounts in 
the ' English Flower Garden' or in Johnson's 'Gardener's 
Dictionary,' the requirements of all the plants that are 
grown in English gardens can be arrived at. The books 
will tell you better than the catalogue which are the 
things best worth growing from seed. But a certain 
amount of experience and natural intelligence can never 
be left out of this kind of study. Mr. Thompson is also 
exceedingly obliging about procuring the seeds of cer- 
tain wild plants which may not be in his catalogue, but 
which are very desirable to grow in rather large gardens 
where there is room, such as Tussilago fragrans and Iris 
fwtidissima. What amateurs find most difficult in ar- 
ranging herbaceous borders — even more difficult than 
colour itself — is to acquire sufficient knowledge of plants 
to judge of their strength and robustness, and, above 
all, of their relative height. Putting Mr. Robinson 
aside, the only book I know that is full of instruction, 
particularly in this respect, is the one I named before 
with great appreciation, 'The Botanic Garden,' by B. 
Maund. 

Gardeners and amateurs who are really interested in 
the subject are beginning to discover that to grow many 
plants successfully, especially in light sandy or gravelly 
soils, you must grow them from seed in the same air and 
soil in which they are expected ultimately to succeed. 
For this you must have three or four small pieces of 
ground given up to the purpose — some dry, some wet, 
some sunny, some shady, and which will require nothing 
but weeding and thinning. Seed-sowing, like all other 
planting, requires a great deal of thought and considera- 
tion. Some grow up in a few days and, every seed having 
germinated, require much thinning, however much you 



JANUARY 167 

may imagine you have sown thinly enough. Some seed- 
lings will transplant perfectly, and not suffer at all in 
the move ; others must be sown in place at all risks. One 
seed-bed is required that can be left entirely alone for 
(say) two years, except for just breaking with a hand- 
fork and weeding, as some seeds germinate very slowly. 
Where this is known to be the case, with large foreign 
seeds it is well before sowing to soak them for twenty- 
four hours in warm water and a little oil — or even to 
puncture the hard skin, as with Cannas. For instance, 
I shall certainly soak the seeds of the little Zucche, a 
kind of Vegetable Marrow that I brought from Florence 
last year, as it is a plant that in England has to do 
much growth in a short time, and it is desirable to get it 
well grown on in good time to plant out at the end of 
May. The exact time of putting out must depend on 
the season, and must be decidedly after that late May 
frost which comes every year without fail, and which in 
some years does gardens so much harm, though we all 
know how this may be guarded against by a little pro- 
tection. 

I think the multiplicity of nurserymen, small and 
great, and the gardeners' sympathy with the trade, have 
had much to do with the fact that the sowing of seeds, 
except in the case of annuals, has gone so out of fash- 
ion. No matter where I go, it is not one garden in a 
hundred that has these permanent small nurseries for 
seeds or even for cuttings, or a reserve garden as de- 
scribed before. And yet I am sure many of the best 
perennials cannot be grown at all in a light sandy soil 
unless they are grown from seed on the spot, and a great 
many more are only to be seen in real perfection if they 
are treated as annuals or biennials. The growing of 
seeds is a work which an amateur gardener can see to 
himself— or, indeed, herself— and I am sure gardening is 



168 MORE POT-POURRI 

the healthiest occupation in the world, as it keeps one 
much out of doors. Instead of lolling indoors in com- 
fortable chairs, one moves about, and with the mind 
fully occupied all the time. 

They sell at the Army and Navy Stores an admirable 
little lamp -stove (Rippingille's patent) for heating small 
greenhouses. This will keep the frost out of a small 
house, and is far easier to manage, for an amateur with 
a gardener who goes home at night, than the usual more 
expensive arrangement. 

There are also small forcing -boxes to put inside a 
greenhouse or in a room for bringing on seeds in early 
spring. 

Greenhouse Cyclamens are always useful, and should 
be sown early in the year (February or March) in heat. 
They should be grown on steadily under glass all the 
summer, and kept well watered, then they will flower all 
through the next winter. Mr. Thompson sells Cyclamen 
seed of the sweet old-fashioned kind, which is rather 
difficult to get from other nurserymen, who all go in for 
the giant sizes, and are now spoiling this lovely flower 
by doubling it. It is best to grow them every year from 
seed ; but if the old plants are sunk out of doors and 
kept moist through the summer they flower very well. 
I have a large old plant this winter in a hanging basket, 
and its appearance is very satisfactory. Some garden- 
ers dry the bulbs on a greenhouse shelf ; that also 
answers. 

I would advise everyone to try and get the old Prince 
of Orange Pelargonium. There is nothing like it, but it 
is not easy to get, as gardeners do not understand that 
it requires to be treated like an ordinary flowering Pelar- 
gonium, rather than like the hardier sweet -leaved kind. 
It wants well cutting back at the end of the summer, 
and then growing on in rather more heat than the ordi- 



JANUARY 169 

nary sweet -leaved Pelargoniums. This little care and 
constantly striking young plants in the summer will 
prevent its dying out. Out of the fifteen to twenty 
kinds of sweet -leaved Geraniums which I possess, I con- 
sider it the most valuable and the best worth having. 

Cuttings of the best French Laurestinus, struck in 
May and grown on to a small standard, make excellent 
filling-up plants for a greenhouse now, and if judi- 
ciously pruned back after flowering, and stood out in 
half shade all the summer, they are covered with large 
white flowers at this time of year. When they get too 
large for pots or tubs they can be planted out in shrub- 
beries; if a little protected by other shrubs, they flower 
as freely as the common one, and the flower, even out of 
doors, is larger and whiter. 

After marking Sutton's list I mark Thompson's, as 
some of the flower seeds are best sown early in January. 
The difficulty about sowing seeds early is that they want 
care and protection for a long time after sowing and 
before they can be put out. We are able to sow the 
hardier annuals here by the middle of March, especially 
Poppies, Corn-flowers, Love -in -the -Mist, Gypsophila, 
etc. I am sure that, in this light soil, the second sowing 
in April never does so well for early -flowering annuals. 
Autumn things, on the contrary, are best not sown till 
May, or they come on too early. I never sow Salpiglos- 
sis or Nemesia out of doors and in place till the begin- 
ning of May. In favourable weather Sweet' Peas may 
be sown, like Green Peas, in a trench out of doors very 
early in the year. 

One of my kind correspondents said she observed I 
was not so rich in blue flowers as was desirable, and 
named the following (I mean to get all those I do not 
already possess) : Commelina ccelestis, Anchusa italica, 
A. capensis, A. sempervirens , Parochetus communis, Pha- 



iyo MORE POT-POURRI 

celia campanularia. Commelina ccelestis does very well 
in a dry back garden of a London house. Browallia 
elata is a most useful annual, and there is a good picture 
of it in Curtis' ' Botanical Magazine.' Catananche cceru- 
lea is an old border perennial, and I have it. Linaria 
reticulata is a pretty, small annual; so is L.aureo- pur- 
purea and L. bipartita. Omphalodes lucilke I have tried 
to get, but failed, and mean to grow it from seed. 

January 8th. — I have read once or twice in the news- 
papers that butterflies have been seen from time to time 
this mild winter, and now this morning I have caught 
sight of one of these press butterflies, a beautiful 
large yellow one, floating over the field as if it were 
summer. 

To-day we have been sowing, in shallow ridges in our 
most favoured border, two or three kinds of early Green 
Peas. How this kind of thing draws the seasons to- 
gether ! I dare say we have much that is disagreeable 
before us ; still, when these Peas are ready, it will be 
leafy June, and spring will be over. 

January 9th. — The Iberis that ornaments French cot- 
tage windows, and that I called ' ' Gihraltarica'' in the first 
book, is not that at all, but I. sempervirens . I have one 
in the greenhouse that was cut back all the summer and 
potted up in October. It has been in flower three weeks 
now, and will go on for a long time. In the spring I 
shall cut it well back and plant it out in the reserve 
garden. It grows easily from cuttings, and Mr. Thomp- 
son, of Ipswich, keeps the seed. It is, of course, not a 
choice plant, but it is an attractive and useful one for 
those who have not much convenience for forcing on 
winter-flowering things in December and January. Like 
many of the commoner plants, I have never seen it 
grown as a window plant in England, though it would 
do well. 



JANUARY 171 

January 12th. — The first little Aconites are out to- 
day! This is early. Going through January without 
cold is rather despairing. I find that even in this dry 
soil the Aconites do much better under evergreens and 
at the edges of shrubs than in the borders which are 
manured and mulched. The borders are too good for 
them, and they increase better if not disturbed. I men- 
tion this, as I was so stupidly long in finding it out 
myself. The more the uneducated gardening mind cares 
about a plant, the more it turns to manure and mulch- 
ing; but in many cases it does more harm than good — 
notably with Aconites, Daffodils, Scillas, etc. What they 
all want is moisture and protection at the growing time. 
Drying ever so much in the summer does them good 
rather than harm, and they never do well in a bed that 
is hosed or watered to suit other things. With the 
Aconites, our first outdoor friends, come a few Snow- 
drops. They have never been planted here in any quan- 
tity, and have a tendency to diminish rather than in- 
crease: perhaps mice are especially fond of them. lam 
more than ever determined to plant a large quantity 
next year ; enough, if possible, for me and the mice too. 
This little Snowdrop poem has such an echo of ' The 
Baby- seed Song' — a great favourite in my other book — 
that I copy it out of a recent ' Pall Mall Gazette' : 

SNOWDROP- TIME 

'It's rather dark in the earth to-day,' 

Said one little bulb to his brother; 
'But I thought that I felt a sunbeam ray — 
We must strive and grow till we find the way ! ' 

And they nestled close to each other. 
Then they struggled and toiled by day and by night 
Till two little Snowdrops, in green and white, 
Rose out of the darkness and into the light, 

And softly kissed one another. 



172 MORE POT-POURRI 

In the greenhouse have now been put the first pots 
of the lovely double Prunus, with its delicate whiteness 
of driven snow; no plant forces better. I said this, or 
something like it, before. Never mind ; with some 
plants it is worth while to repeat myself. In the coun- 
try I do not now care to grow India-rubber plants or 
Aspidistras, except to give away. They only remind me 
of towns, and take a good deal of room. 

I have in the greenhouse several pots of a white 
Oxalis — I do not know its distinguishing name — with a 
long growth of its lovely fresh green leaves, which can 
be picked and mixed with delicate greenhouse flowers, as 
they last well in water. It has a white flower in spring, 
and the whole plant is very like an improved version of 
our Wood Sorrel, Oxalis acetosella. The more I look at 
my beautiful old 'Jacquin' Oxalis book, the more I feel 
how much interesting greenhouse cultivation is to be 
had out of growing several of the best Oxalises. Almost 
all are natives of the Cape of Good Hope, which means 
easy greenhouse cultivation, and winter or early spring 
flowering. I shall certainly try to increase my stock, 
though one very seldom sees any of them catalogued. 

Tradescantias, that I used to grow in pots for Lon- 
don, I find equally useful here. The common green one 
is all but hardy, and flourishes outside by the green- 
house wall. This, picked and put into a flat glass, grows 
without roots in the water in the most graceful manner 
for weeks together. A few bits of flower stuck in — such 
as, for instance, the Sparmatia africana, which continues 
to flower better if constant^ picked down to where the 
fresh buds are forming — and you have a lovely winter 
flower arrangement at once: grace of form in the grow- 
ing leaves, contrast in the starry white flowers, colour in | 
the brilliant yellow shot with red stamens. 'Munstead 1 
flower -glasses, as designed by Miss Jekyll (very cheap, I 



JANUARY 173 

and all kinds of useful shapes), are still to be got at 
Green & Nephews, Queen Victoria street, London, E.C. 

The variegated gold -coloured Tradescantia and T. 
discolor are useful and pretty, and should never be 
allowed to die out or get shabby. They grow so easily 
at every joint that they are to greenhouses what certain 
weeds are to gardens. 

Mr. Smee, in his 'My Garden,' recommends Forenia 
asiatica as a good stove -plant. I have not yet got it, 
but mean to do so. 

January 13th. — A tall greenhouse grass called Cype- 
rus laxus I find easy to grow. It is very pretty picked 
in winter and stuck into a bottle behind some short 
pieces of bright -coloured flowers. It looks refined, and 
if against or near white paint or a white wall its shad- 
ows are pretty, thrown by the lamp through the long 
evenings. A greenhouse evergreen called Rhododendron 
jasminiflorum is worth all trouble. It is in bloom now, 
sweet and graceful, and not at all common. All these 
half-hardy hard -wooded plants I find rather difficult to 
keep in health, but I am going to pay much more atten- 
tion to their summer treatment. They want to go out 
for a month or two ; but, to prevent their getting dry, 
they must be either sunk in cocoanut fibre, or sur- 
rounded by moss, or covered with straw. If sunk in the 
earth, worms are apt to get in. I think they are best 
replaced towards the middle of August into the cool 
house, where they can be watched. Sinking the small 
pot into a larger with some moss between is the best 
help of all. There is no fun in growing only the things 
everyone can grow, and nothing vexes me like seeing a 
plant which came quite healthy from a nurseryman, and 
in a year not only has not grown, but looks less well 
than when it first came. 

The Choisya ternata cut back in May is flowering 



174 MORE POT-POURRI 

splendidly. I wish I had room for eight pots of them 
instead of only two. There are several pots with Epi- 
phyllum truncatum in full flower. The flowers are very 
pretty when seen close, and look well gathered and put 
into small glasses ; but the colour is a little metallic 
and magentary. Most greenhouses have them, but few 
people manage to flower them well. 

Ficus repens is a little, graceful, easily cultivated 
greenhouse climber, which hangs prettily in baskets or 
creeps along stones in a greenhouse border. 

Every year we grow various Eucalyptuses from seed 
— some for putting out, and some for retaining in pots — 
especially the very sweet Eucalyptus citriodora, which is 
in the greenhouse now and is a great help, as it looks 
flourishing ; while the sweet Verbenas will have their 
winter rest, as they are deciduous, whatever one does — 
at least, so far as I have been able to manage up to now. 
But I am not sure that autumn cuttings, grown on in 
heat, might not remain growing at any rate for part of 
the winter. Life is always rather unbearable to my lux- 
ury-loving nature without Lemon -scented Verbena, and 
I miss it so in the finger-bowls at dinner, partly because 
those few leaves supply what one wants without much 
trouble. But a little bunch of Violets carefully arranged, 
and one Sweet Geranium leaf, especially the Prince of 
Orange, make a combination that pleases everyone, and 
they are always at hand at this time of year. 

January 14th. — In the January number of a charm- 
ing little periodical called 'The Sun -children's Budget,' 
intended to teach young children botany easily and 
amusingly, there was an account and an illustration of a 
rare English wild flower, Paonia corallina. The coloured 
print of it gives the idea that the red may not be of a 
very pretty hue ; but this would not matter, as the chief 
charm of the plant is the seed -pod. This slightly re- 



JANUARY 175 

sembles in shape the seed -pod of that other charming 
wild flower, the Iris fmtidissima, also much less grown 
than it should be in semi-wild, damp places, with its 
beautiful coral -red seed and strange -shaped, gaping 
capsule, so decorative in a vase in winter. The seed- 
covered branching growth of Montbretias mixes well 
with the twiggy flower -stems of the Statice (or Sea Lav- 
ender). S. latifolia is the best for winter decoration. 
To return to Pceonia corallina. I have been able to get 
some plants from Mr. Thompson. He says it is a greedy 
feeder, that the seeds germinate slowly, and that the 
plant grown from seed is long in coming to its flowering 
time. It flowers in May and June, and in the autumn 
the brown, downy pods open along their inner side and 
display the seeds. It seems to be a most rare wild 
flower, growing on an island in the Severn. Sir William 
Hooker says it is to be found at Blaize Castle, near Bris- 
tol. Gerarde mentions it, and says that he found it in a 
rabbit warren at Southfleet in Kent. But in my edi- 
tion the editor, Thomas Johnson, is sceptical, and adds 
severely : ' I have been told that our author himself 
planted that Peionie there, and afterwards seemed to 
find it there by accident ; and I do believe it was so, be- 
cause none before or since have ever seen or heard of its 
growing wild in any part of this kingdom. ' The origin 
of the botanical word 'Pgeonia' is from one Paeon, the 
physician of the Olympian gods, who used the leaves 
for healing, notably in the case of Pluto when he was 
wounded by Hercules. 

January 16th. — Last January someone sent me a cut- 
ting out of ' The Scotsman' ; it was called ' Floral Notes 
from the West Coast of Ross -shire.' The writer begins 
by showing himself extremely proud, as is only natural, 
of flowering his Lilium giganteum, nine feet high and 
with nineteen perfect blooms on it. He also praises, 



176 MORE POT-POURRI 

what I recommend to everybody, the biennial Micliauxia 
campanuloides . He says everyone used to exclaim on 
seeing it, 'Oh! what a charming white Lily!' The only 
way, as I stated before, is to grow it from seed. Wat- 
sonia marglnata, according to him, is a lovely plant 
which in Scotland can be classed as a hardy perennial. 
It a good deal resembles the Sparaxis pulcherrima ; in 
fact, much more so than it resembles the other Wat- 
sonias, which, he says, are shy bloomers. He speaks of 
another little favourite of mine, Linaria repens alba, and 
describes it — as I have always done — by saying it re- 
minds him strongly of a Lily -of -the -Valley. It is very 
easy to grow, and well worth having. It is seldom found 
in flower lists, and he says he got his from Amos Perry, 
of Winchmore Hill, Herts. He mentions a pure white 
Iris kmmpferi in full bloom, and below it a mixed mass 
of those new Tigridias (Aurea and Lilacina grandiflora) 
and brilliant blue Commelina. This mixture was hard 
to beat. Also the trimming round the base of the Mi- 
chauxia, already described, consisted of a variety of 
Platycodons or Japanese balloon -plants, in different 
shades of blue, mixed with white Swainsonia. All these 
last-named, with the exception of the Swainsonia, came 
from Roozen's. Then he says : ' I think I have told you 
all that I can remember as being particularly good in 
1896.' I thought he gave such a creditable list that it 
might interest others who did not see ' The Scotsman' — 
good combinations being so difficult to get in herbaceous 
and bulb gardens. He goes on to say: ' The most strik- 
ing flowers grown here in 1897 were a collection of Calo- 
chorti. I had tried them previously on a very small 
scale, with very small success ; but, knowing them to be 
quite a specialty of the Messrs. Wallace of Colchester, I 
corresponded with them, and they sent me a collection 
of Calochortus bulbs which they thought would suit, and 



JANUARY 177 

suit they certainly did, for they gave us the very greatest 
pleasure and were the envy and admiration^ of everyone 
else who saw them.' He put his Calochorti into a bor- 
der with all the best mixed make-up soils he could find. 
Planting them in November, they flowered the following 
June. The only trouble from which they suffered in 
their infancy was slugs. But slices of Potato and Tur- 
nip acted as counter-attractions, and the plague was 
stayed. He says : ' There were about seven varieties 
of the Calochorti, and I don't think that in their own 
Calif ornian forests they could have done much better. 
Anything more perfectly fascinating than a vaseful of 
Calochorti it would be impossible to grow in a British 
garden ; and they last such a long time in water.' He 
names, without describing them, two other favourites, 
the first of which I have, Dracocephalum argumense and 
Yancouveria Jiexandra, ' both gems in their way.' He 
goes on ' For those who are fond of rare Tulips, I must 
not forget to recommend Tulipa Kaufmanniana, which I 
bloomed for the first time last spring, and which is quite 
equal in its way to Tulipa Greigi and several other Tulip 
species which I have had from time to time from my 
aforementioned Dutch friends. After the Calochorti, 
perhaps a bed of Ixias from the same Haarlem firm was 
the next best thing my garden produced in 1897. I find 
Ixias the very easiest plants to grow, and this year they 
were all but as good as I have ever seen them in Italian 
gardens. So marvellously brilliant were they as to be 
quite dazzling to the eyes on a sunny day. They have 
only one fault; viz., that, after flowering in June and 
ripening off, they begin their next year's growth in Oc- 
tober, and so their young leaves are rather apt to get 
punished by the black frosts of spring. The fact is, 
they suffer from insomnia, and so by rights they should 
be lifted in July and made to sleep, in spite of them- 



178 MORE POT-POURRI 

selves, on a dark shelf till planted again in March ; but 
they do wonderfully well here even if left to take care of 
themselves.' It is quite a relief to hear this wonderfully 
successful amateur has difficulties with Lilies. All the 
same, the description he gives of his own seems to me 
very like success. He speaks of the White Martagon 
(a Lily I am now trying to grow) and Lilium testaceum 
as being great favourites with him. He was struck at 
Torridon by another plant which he says does so much 
better there than with him ; viz., the scarlet and green 
Alstrcemeria psittacina. The clumps were almost as 
strong as sheaves of oats. 'I have a new variety,' he 
writes, 'of this parrot flower — a deep crimson one — 
which was very good here at the end of November.' But 
if I go on I shall end by quoting the whole of this most 
interesting gardening letter. I hope the anonymous 
writer, who dates from Inverewe Poole we, where the 
climate must be such as to make any gardener jealous, 
will forgive this long quotation extracted by a sincere 
admirer, though unknown fellow -gardener. 

Since writing the above I have been sent another 
letter from a January ' Scotsman ' of this year ( 1899 ) . 
The opening sentence is so original and suggestive for 
anyone who has a garden capable of being easily ex- 
tended that I quote it as it stands : ' My garden having 
become quite filled up, I have for the last few years 
taken to enclosing bits of rough ground inside the 
policies (or the domain, as they would call it in Ire- 
land), and have gone somewhat enthusiastically into 
shrubs. I have now three of these small enclosures, 
and each one seems more or less to suit some particular 
class of plant. My "Fantasy" is hard and gravelly, 
and suits the Genista and Gitisus tribes very well. My 
"Riviera" is very sunny and with good soil, and in 
it I grow my rarest exotics ; and "America," my latest 



JANUARY i 79 

creation, being more peaty, damp, and shady, like a 
wee bit of the backwoods, has been given over to the 
so-called American plants — Rhododendrons, Azaleas, 
Andromedas, Kalmias, Heaths, and, besides these, 
Magnolias, Bamboos, and very many other things ; so 
many, indeed, that besides the sixty Azaleas which fill 
a bed in the centre, there are a hundred and seventy 
kinds of rare plants in it, gathered from most of the 
Temperate portions of our globe ; and, with one or 
two exceptions, I must say they appear very promis- 
ing, considering my little "America" was only colonized 
in April last.' He then details his triumphs: 'My 
greatest this summer was my flowering abundantly the 
rare and beautiful Chilian shrub, the Grinodendron 
hooJceri. I got it from Mr. Smith, at Newry, and 
planted it in my "Riviera" in the spring of 1897; it 
stood last winter well, and early in June it blossomed 
freely. We have but few shrubs with crimson flowers, 
the blooms of so many of them being either white or 
yellow. But the Crinodendron is a grand exception. 
Its nearest neighbours on each side of it consist of 
plants of the Abutilon vitifolium and Garpenteria cali- 
fornica, both of which stood the winter ; and the 
former, from having come on so well, will be bound 
to flower next season. It has a great name now, espe- 
cially in Ireland, for hardiness and for its beautiful 
blossoms. I possess in my " Riviera" a number of 
things, of which I know little or nothing, with queer 
names, such as Coprosraas, Callisteraons, Aristotelias, 
Pittosporums, Raphiolepis, Agalmas, Styrax, Indigof- 
eras, etc. ; and, in spite of their names, I must say 
they look happy.' 

As from the other letter, I only extract what seems to 
me most interesting : ' I must now tell the contents 
of my Azalea bed, already referred to, all of which I got 



180 MORE POT-POURRI 

from M. Louis van Houtte, of Ghent. There are sixty 
plants, in sixty different varieties or species. There are 
single and double hardy Ghent Azaleas, and single 
Azalea mollis, and double hybrids of Mollis. They 
occupy the bed, with the exception of a clump of Phyl- 
lostachys viridi glaucescens and Phyllostachys mitis (Bam- 
boos) in the centre, and I can truly say there was not a 
bad plant or a bad variety among the lot, and everyone 
of them was full on arriving. If anyone wants a bril- 
liant edging to a Rhododendron bed, let me commend 
to them Azaleas Fritz Quihou and Gloria Mundi ; the 
former is of an extraordinarily dazzling crimson. Many 
people are of the opinion that the flowering season of 
Azaleas is short and soon over, but this would not 
happen if they got a good selection from M. van Houtte. 
I see from my diary that the first Azaleas expanded with 
me on May 18th, and they did not finish till July 24th, 
so that they lasted more than nine weeks. About the 
last to open were the pink and the crimson doubles, Bijou 
de Gendbruggen and Louis Aime van Houtte, and the 
lovely species Sinensis flore alba only began to expand 
on July 16th. For those who like species, Azaleas Occi- 
dentalis arid Arborescens are both very interesting. . . . 
' I have a great love of Heaths, but have not got 
many of them. After considerable trouble, I got some 
good plants of Erica arborea from Newry, which we had 
so much admired on the hillsides of Corsica. They seem 
to do very well here, and two of them bloomed this 
summer ; but whether they will grow into trees in my 
" Riviera," as they do on the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean, I cannot yet tell. Erica australis, Erica medi- 
terranea, and the Cornish Heath (E. vagans) are, like the 
Hydrangeas, delightful in late autumn, and so is the 
white Irish Dabozcia polifolia, of which we can hardly 
have too much 



JANUARY 181 

'I have, I think, merely alluded to the Genistas, and 
most people know, besides the common yellow, the White 
Portugal and the Yellow Spanish so-called Broom, which 
is, however, not really a Genista, but a Spartium, though 
it looks so like a Broom, and is very showy late in the 
season, when the common Broom is over. The low- 
growing real Genista hispanica is a very useful little 
plant. Those who have not got the Broom with the 
crimson lip (G. andreana) , nor the cream-coloured 
hybrid (G. prcecox) , should not fail to get them both, as 
they are an immense acquisition to our hardy flower- 
ing shrubs. 

'To-day I have been reminded of a nice plant of 
Eugenia ugni, a kind of Myrtle which has stood out 
some years against the terrace wall of my garden, and 
which bloomed and ripened its fruit so well that I have 
lately sent a sample of its fragrant berries to a friend in 
Switzerland. The scent and flavour remind one of 
both Strawberries and Pineapple, with a slight mixture 
of Bog Myrtle.' I hope no one will confound this 
description of a Scotch garden with what I am able to 
do in dry Surrey. 8 ; 

January 20th. — It is a constant disappointment to 
me that I cannot get the Tussilago fragrans, called 
Winter Heliotrope, with its delicious fragrant spikes 
of flowers, to bloom here. It is quite hardy, and a 
weed supposed to grow anywhere, but I never get any- 
thing except a few leaves. This, of course, is in conse- 
quence of the dryness, the poorness of the soil, and the 
want of shade, as it has such a weedy growth I cannot 
put it into any good border. It is a distinct loss, not 
getting these flowers in midwinter. I should recom- 
mend everyone who has a damp corner to try and grow 
them. They are not showy, but when picked their 
delicious scent will pervade a whole room. 



182 MORE POT-POURRI 

Rue, which is sometimes grown in kitchen gardens, 
though I think seldom used now in cookery, is hardly 
ever grown in shrubberies, where it makes in winter a 
charming feature. I find few people know that the 
French name for the plant is exactly the same as in 
English. Some people think the strong odour disagree- 
able, but I myself think it delicious. It is very useful 
to pick for winter bouquets, and the beautiful gray-blue 
of its foliage contrasts well with ordinary evergreens. 
If picked hard, that is as good as cutting it back, and 
only promotes its growth. It is very easy to grow — 
either from cuttings, divisions of the tufts, or seeds. 
Dryness, though making it look rather poor in summer, 
does it no harm for the next winter. Another plant that 
does admirably here in the light soil is Santolina (Lav- 
ender Cotton), and should always be grown for its 
pretty hoary foliage. It mixes well with some flowers, 
and is one of those plants that surprises one by its 
absence from any garden. 

The lower part of the stage in my larger greenhouse 
— I do not mean my little show one near the drawing- 
room — has been a veritable widow's cruse for me this 
winter. We have constantly had Mushrooms from our 
bed, covered with its sheet of corrugated iron, that I 
mentioned before. 

Lately we have had lots of Sutton's winter salad, 
Tarragon, Chives, etc., Cress — I do not like Mustard — 
Rhubarb, and Sea -kale. The Watercress in boxes, 
described before, has done admirably in the frame. My 
gardener is getting extremely clever at forcing things 
in this way through the winter. Early in this month, 
lunching with a neighbour, we had an excellent dish — 
the best I have ever seen — of forced green Asparagus. 
I think next year I must try and grow this too. 

In my opinion, Leeks are far too little used in general 



JANUARY 183 

by English people. Most English cooks only use them 
as a flavouring for soup or boiled beef. They are really 
excellent stewed, and very good raw, cut up with beet- 
root, especially if not the large, coarse kind recom- 
mended in most of the English catalogues. The Long 
Winter Leek {Poire au long cV River de Paris) is quite 
distinct from all other kinds. It is very delicate, quite 
small, withstands the winter well, and is the only kind 
that produces those fine, very long, slender Leeks which 
are seen in bundles early in the year in the Central 
Market at Paris. In France, gardeners help nature a 
little by earthing up the plants while they are growing. 
It can be chopped up fine with other salad herbs when 
Chive tops are not to be got unless they are forced. The 
wild Leek (the Allium ampeloprasum) still grows, I 
believe, in parts of Wales, and is, as to form and 
tint, beautiful and decorative. It is, of course, well 
known as the Welsh emblem. 

January 27th. — I have on my flower table a shrub- 
by Begonia, in a pot, with small, pointed, spotty leaves 
and hanging white flowers. They are easily reared 
from seed, and I do think they grow so beautifully and 
can be pruned into such lovely shapes ! They are far 
more beautiful than those great, flat, floppy, opulent, 
tuberous -rooted ones that flower in the summer. The 
parent of my plant (mossy green leaves, spotted silvery 
white) must have been called B. albapicta. 

The white Arums, which were laid on their side all 
the summer in the pots and well dried, are handsomer 
plants, and throwing up more flowers than I have ever 
had before when they were planted out in summer. 

In this dry, frosty weather we thin and prune out the 
shrubberies. Every plant is given a fair chance or else 
cut down. Taking all suckers from the Lilacs improves 
them immenselv. How seldom it is done ! 



184 MORE POT-POURRI 

January 28th. — There is nothing like a date and a 
detailed account of the weather for accentuating a gar- 
den fact. We have had lately several days of frost, and 
we had to-day for luncheon so excellent a green vegeta- 
ble that both gardener and cook had immediately to be 
interrogated as to details. The gardener said it was 
grown from Sutton's hardy -sprouting Kale called 
' Thousand-headed,' and I see in a note to the catalogue 
that 'the Borecoles thrive better in poor soil than most 
vegetables.' This naturally accounts for their being 
good -tasting here. In Vilmorin's list, they are 
described as a cattle -feeding plant of large size, and 
bearing frost extremely well. The cook informed me 
that she had cut the green of the leaf carefully off the 
stalk, and then cooked it exactly like Spinach. I give 
my cook the credit for cutting it off the stalk, as I had 
never suggested it. The result was most satisfactory. 

Receipts 

An excellent way to improve northern or frozen 
game, of which a great deal is now sold, is to lay the 
birds in a bath of milk for twenty-four hours, changing 
the milk twice. They are then roasted in the ordinary 
way, and are excellent. 

A good way of cooking potatoes in winter is to steam 
them without their skins. Then melt some very good 
fresh butter in a small iron saucepan, and to this add 
a good lot of onions shredded very fine, and fry till a 
good mahogany brown, not black. Put the potatoes in 
a very hot fireproof dish, and pour the hot butter and 
onions over them just before serving. 

Parsnips. — Everybody grows parsnips, so far as I 
can make out, and hardly anyone ever eats them ; except 
now and then with boiled pork and with salt cod on 



JANUARY 185 

Good Friday. They are very good in England, as our 
mild winters enable us to leave them in the ground, 
which makes them much better than if they had been 
stored in sand or ashes. Here is a receipt for anyone 
who does not dislike parsnips and does like curry : Boil 
some fine parsnips whole, without cutting them, wash 
and brush them, and put into just enough boiling water 
to cover them. Simmer till tender and till the water is 
nearly evaporated — about one hour and a half . Tear 
the parsnips into fine shreds with two forks. Sprinkle 
with cloves and a little dusted sugar. Have prepared 
apart a curry sauce. (See p. 252, ' Pot - Pour r i' .) Pour 
this over the parsnips, warm up together, and serve with 
boiled Patna rice in a dish apart. 

Mutton Cutlets a la Russe.— Braise the cutlets. 
The sauce is made as follows : One stick of horseradish 
(scraped), four shallots, one bay-leaf, a little thyme, a 
little raw ham (chopped), a little nutmeg, pepper and 
salt, one dessertspoonful of sugar, a tablespoonful of 
vinegar, the same quantity of sherry, and one ounce of 
butter. Simmer it over a slow fire for twenty minutes, 
then add a little white sauce, the yolks of two eggs, and 
a little cream. Stir over the fire until it begins to sim- 
mer ; then pass it through a hair -sieve and spread on 
one side of the cutlets. Strew on a little Parmesan 
cheese, and brown the cutlets in the oven. Dish them 
up with a little good gravy. 

Open Apple Tart.— For this it is necessary to have 
a small, round, iron plate, flat, with a very narrow rim, 
as used abroad. In the country you can have them 
made, and in London you can buy them at the good 
shops. They must not be made of tin. Line this with 
a puff- paste, and have a deep rim of paste all round. 
Prepare a compote of good, rich apple, reduced till dry 
enough to mix in a small quantity of fresh butter. If 



186 MORE POT-POURRI 

at all lumpy, the apple must first be passed through a 
sieve. Pour this on to the pastry, then peel and cut a 
quince into very thin, neat slices. Lay these on the 
apple in circles till you nearly reach the middle. Bake 
the purie in the oven till the pastry is cooked without 
burning. Serve very hot, or quite cold. 



FEBRUARY 

Mistresses and servants — Difficulty of getting servants — Girls 
instead of boys — Eegistry Offices — The employments that do 
not take up characters — Early rising — Baron Humboldt — 
Coverings for larders — Blackbeetles — Children's nurses — 
Ignorance of young married women — Some natural history 
books — Forcing blossoming branches — Horticultural Show — 
Letter from San Moritz — Eeceipts. 

Last year, in February, I wrote a little article on 
mistresses and servants in the 'Cornhill Magazine.' It 
was called forth by the report of a case in the Divisional 
Court which seemed interesting at the time. The point 
at issue was whether a servant was entitled to give notice 
at any time within the first fortnight of her service, 
so as to enable her to leave at the end of the first 
month. The judgment did not settle the law of the 
case. My friends complained that I more or less put 
forth the difficulties of the present day with regard to 
mistresses and servants — especially the difficulty of the 
insufficient supply of servants — but that I suggested 
nothing new by way of a solution. As the question is 
one of very general interest, I think I will quote some 
part of the article, adding a few practical suggestions 
which have occurred to me since. 

Servants may, and often do, get into situations which 
turn out to be entirely different from what they have 
been led to expect. It may be even that they find 
themselves in a 'bad' house; or with a drunken mistress; 
or, what is still more common with a young girl, under 
a drunken cook, whom the mistress still believes in ; or 

(187) 



1 88 MORE POT-POURRI 

under a foreign man -cook whose manners are disagree- 
able to her, but who gets very angry at her insisting on 
leaving when he wants to keep her. He then abuses her 
to the mistress, who is angry and put out at her wishing 
to go, and refuses to give her a character or pass on the 
one she received with her. All these, and many similar 
cases, are very hard on servants, who, as a rule, cannot 
afford to bring the case before the county court judge, 
and who would probably have little to adduce as proof, 
even if they could ask for help and protection. We all 
suffer from the well-known faults of servants, but we 
are apt often to forget how much there is to be said on 
the other side. With us, it is a case more or less of 
expense and inconvenience ; with them, it is their actual 
livelihood. 

I shall, I believe, be accused of seeing the question 
too much from the servants' point of view. But have we 
not all from our youth up heard of the selfishness, the 
ingratitude, the wastefulness, the idleness of servants ? 
And each generation pronounces them to be worse than 
they 'ever were before. I can remember the time when 
servants were first expected to be clean, but baths were 
not provided ; and to use the bathroom, which was done 
on the sly, was thought as great an impertinence as if 
they had asked for dessert every day after dinner. 

Customs change, but the big fact always remains the 
same — that the relation between master and servant is, 
and must always be, one of self-interest. Within limits, 
each tries to get the best of the bargain. One pays to 
command ; the other receives to obey. The most self- 
denying Christian principles are of no avail. Carried to 
a logical conclusion, these principles would lead to the 
Christian mistress doing the work and the idle maid 
going to bed; or, the humble Christian servant declaring 
that her work was a pleasure, and that she could not 



FEBRUARY 189 

possibly take her wages. No, we are — on both sides — 
just as selfish as we dare be. And this self-interested 
bargain between masters and servants can only be 
settled on each individual case. The merits on each side 
must, according to one of the oldest of symbols, be 
placed in the scales, and the noble, majestic, upright 
figure of Justice must hold out her arm and adjust the 
balance. 

We never get beyond this, and it is the only escape 
from the greatest of tyrannies — the power, either by 
gold or by force, of one human being over another. This 
power it will ever be the business of civilisation to rule 
and to diminish. This, in our day, is the business, first, 
of the master of a house; or, when he has the chance, 
of the county court judge. 

The temptation to give false or partially false charac- 
ters is a very great one to young and kind-hearted 
people. As in so many other cases, the public them- 
selves are responsible for this — so many people like 
being deceived, and look upon truth as naked and 
barbaric. If a mistress gives an honest character, not 
all praise, in nine cases out of ten the servant fails to 
get the place. This state of things is unreasonable and 
ridiculous; and if those about to engage a servant would 
ask for the chief failing of the person they are going to 
admit into their families, they would be better able to 
judge if the servant were likely to suit them or not. I 
remember, many years ago, being asked if I knew of 
a young nurse who was to have every good quality under 
the sun. She was to be strong, she was to ask for no 
holidays, she was never to leave the children to associate 
with the other servants, her temper was to be perfect, 
and so on. I wrote back that such a combination of 
good qualities as was expected for twenty pounds a year 
I had never yet met with in any young mother. A cor- 



igo MORE POT-POURRI 

responding story is of a lady who wrote to a French 
friend for a holiday tutor. He also was to be a 
lump of perfection. The Frenchwoman wrote back : 
'Je ferai tout mon possible, mais si je trouve ton homme 
je l'epouse.' 

A wit of fifty years ago used to say: 'I marry my wife 
for her money, I engage my footmen for their looks, as 
those are the only two things that can possibly be 
known beforehand. 7 As is common enough with a 
cynical remark, there is a good deal of truth in this. 

Now we come to what I consider to be one of the 
greatest changes that has occurred of late years; viz., 
the extreme facility for women getting employment with- 
out any character at all ; that is to say, without any 
prying into the private conduct or personal character- 
istics of any individual. For example, all shops and 
stores, laundries and many other houses of business, 
engage their employes from their general appearance and 
the account they give of themselves. If they do not do 
their work, if they are insubordinate or unpunctual, they 
are dismissed on Saturday night — sometimes even with- 
out the usual week's notice and without any reason 
being assigned. This often appears a great hardship, 
but my point is that one of the chief objections to 
domestic service is that, from the very start, some sort 
of recommendation is required from someone who is 
supposed to be in a responsible position. I do not say 
this is not necessary, but I do think the custom might 
be considerably relaxed, with advantage to everybody. 
The usual characters given are often clever skating on 
very thin ice, and convey little real knowledge of the 
servant's faults or merits. Servants, like other people, 
have undoubtedly the defects of their virtues, and the 
wise way is to make up our minds what we are prepared 
to give up. If we go in for youth and good looks, we 



FEBRUARY i 9 i 

can scarcely hope for the qualities we may expect to find 
in age and ugliness. In considering the merits of a 
situation, the more educated mind should not fail to 
look at it from the point of view of the servant. 

After leaving school, village as well as town girls, in 
a great number of cases, are kept at home for a few 
years by their mothers. This gives them a love of 
freedom and amusement which singularly unfits them 
for the discipline of domestic service. It might be a 
possible bridging of the difficulty if it became usual for 
each family, according to its position, to keep fewer 
permanent servants and give, as a matter of course, 
more outside help, each of a specialised kind, to be got 
from girls who have lately left school, and whose 
mothers would probably not at all object to their earn- 
ing a little money and doing outside work — let us say, 
up to two o'clock. A girl who was a good needlewoman 
at school might be used once a week to repair linen, or 
to do any other casual mending. I heard lately of a 
young housekeeper, tired of boys who did their work 
badly, having obtained excellent assistance from a 
schoolgirl of sixteen, whom she trained to clean boots, 
knives, and lamps every morning. A beginning of this 
kind might, I think, greatly increase the much -needed 
supply, and, above all, create a means of direct com- 
munication between the poor and rich, which is still one 
of the great wants of the day, in spite of all the 
charitable ladies. Some people would suggest that it 
might bring infection into the house ; but I really think 
that the risk is no greater than with everything else in 
London. There is always a proportion of risk — in the 
street, the 'Underground,' the omnibus, the Zoological 
Gardens, the bread, the meat, and, above all, the milk. 

A proof of the exceeding difficulty that many have in 
getting employment is to be seen in the large numbers 



i 9 2 MORE POT-POURRI 

that exist of those terrible harpies called Registry- 
Offices, the very maintenance of which depends on 
robbing the poor girls who seek employment just at the 
moment they can least afford it. I could quote story on 
story of how six, seven, or eight shillings are taken 
from a country girl without the smallest return to her- 
self ; indeed, in some cases they simply retain any 
written references which she may have given into their 
charge at their request. I believe an effort is being 
made to meet this difficulty by an association called 
'The Guild of Registries,' and it certainly appears to 
be sadly wanted. 

A new agency has been lately started on rather 
different lines in Derby street, Mayfair, and conducted 
by three house -stewards, who have lived many years at 
the head of large households. Their idea is that they 
are perhaps better judges of the kind of servants apply- 
ing for situations than those with less experience can 
be. Also they mean to get introductions to clergymen 
and the heads of schools all over the country, so as to 
help girls from villages who wish to go into service. 
The experiment seems to me an interesting one. 

Things must still be very wrong when the proportion 
of people Who keep servants is so very small, and that 
of the poor population so very large, and yet we con- 
tinually meet with the complaint that servants, espe- 
cially under -servants, are so difficult to find. 

As we get older, we, most of us, step into shoes 
we should have vowed in our youth we never would put 
on, and each one in his generation sees some progress 
in civilisation which has ruined servants, and feels that 
good servants are far more rare and difficult to find than 
they were twenty, thirty, or (say) fifty years ago. Good 
servants — by which I mean unselfish, devoted human 
beings — are never likely to be a great glut in the 



FEBRUARY 193 

market. But then are extra good, judicious, sensible 
masters and mistresses so very common ? 

Of all the deadly -dull subjects of conversation among 
women, the deadliest is the abuse of servants ; and few 
seem to realise that it is practically self-condemnation, as, 
in the long run, bad servants mean bad mistresses, or, 
at any rate, mistresses with unsympathetic natures and 
without the talent to rule firmly but not tyrannically. 

When we think of servants' homes and training, and 
how their youth has been passed, especially in large 
towns, and how they are suddenly brought to face 
unaccustomed luxury and high feeding, and to live an 
exciting life of society among themselves, the ceaseless 
wonder to me always is that servants are as good as 
they are, and keep as ' straight ' as they do, more 
especially as they are very often set a bad example by 
the people they serve. In large households where there 
are many — and consequently idle — menservants, keep- 
ing up a high standard of morality is hopeless, or at 
least very difficult. The constant absence from home 
so common to-day is one of the great causes of 
unsatisfactory establishments. 

Under -servants in moderate -sized houses are the 
ones that excite my pity. It is always ' the girl ' who is 
to do this and that, the half -up and half- down drudge 
who has two or three people who think they have an 
absolute right over her ; or ' the boy ' who is to have all 
work and no play. It is on the same principle, I 
suppose, as the 'fag' at school. 'I had to do it once, 
so now I will make someone else do the same.' Petty 
love of power and cruelty is so inherent in human 
nature ! As was recounted some time ago in the 
4 Spectator,' ' I'll learn you to be a toad ! '—the remark 
of a small urchin as, stone in hand, he eyed the 
offending reptile. 



ig 4 MORE POT-POURRI 

One of the many causes of disappointment about 
servants is, that those people who treat them with kind- 
ness and consideration expect in return more gratitude 
than the circumstances admit. 

I remember a friend who had been good to a little 
Swiss nurserymaid, and reproached her for leaving her 
to go to another situation with slightly higher wages. 
The girl put out her hands, shrugged her little 
shoulders, and said : ' Mon Dieu ! madame, que voulez- 
vous ? J'ai quitte ma mere pour cela ! ' How true it 
was ! And not only her mother, but her green Swiss 
valley, with the beautiful sunlit mountains all round — 
to live in London, with its smoke and its darkness ! My 
friend was convinced, and said no more. 

Servants stick very closely to what they consider 
their own duty, but I have never found servants object 
to anything if told of it beforehand. They do not like 
unexpected duties sprung upon them, and this is merely 
a safe rule for their own protection. But the mistress 
of a house must reserve to herself the right to ask a 
servant to do anything, and if the refusal is at all 
impertinent, there is nothing for it but to part. There 
is reason, too, for this irritating attitude of servants 
declaring they will not do work they have not been 
engaged to do. The common -sense of the matter pro- 
tects them from each other, as one masterful, selfish 
servant would get all her work done for her by another 
(as boys get their lessons done at school), if public 
opinion amongst themselves were not strongly against 
such a shuffling of duties. 

Servants almost always behave admirably when their 
common humanity is affected. At times of sorrow or 
joy, births and deaths, or any sudden change and loss 
of fortune, they are shaken out of their attitude of 
habitual selfishness. But, as time goes on, they resent 



FEBRUARY 195 

the position being different from what they undertook 
when engaged, and think it better to make a change. 

One of the things that seems a remnant of other 
days, and strikes servants themselves as being particu- 
larly tyrannical, is being expected to attend family 
prayers, whether they like it or not, and that, too, in 
the midst of their morning work. But the attitude of 
mind and the ways and customs of servants are as 
incomprehensible to us as are those of the gipsies; and 
to worry and hurry people who have not our views, 
whose laws are not ours, whose morality is not ours, 
whose customs are not ours, is a most useless tyranny, 
be it directed against gipsies or against servants. These 
manners and customs have grown up and are repeated 
by servants over and over again, in a way that they 
themselves often do not understand. One of their 
invariable rules, which is often commented on, is that 
servants — almost without exception — refuse to eat 
game. It is generally supposed that this is because 
game does not cost their masters and mistresses actual 
money. This is so foolish a reason I cannot believe it 
to have been the origin of the objection. I feel it is far 
more likely that in the days before railways, when game 
travelled slowly, it was the fashion for everybody to eat 
high game ; but when it got past sending to table — 
unbought luxury though it was — the thrifty house- 
keeper suggested to the cook that the servants might 
have it. They had far better opportunity than the 
master upstairs of judging what state it was in, and I 
confess I am not surprised that, as a body, they declined 
to make their dinner off it. And so that mysterious 
thing — a custom — grew up for servants not to eat game. 

Servants, even the best and most devoted, will not 
'tell of each other.' It is useless to expect it: just as 
useless as a master expecting boys to tell tales at a 



196 MORE POT-POURRI 

public school. And, on the whole, this is a good rule 
even for ourselves. If a system of tale -bearing could 
be established, it would make life unbearable for all 
of us. 

An eternal complaint against servants is about early 
rising. I believe a number of people have no doubt 
that fifty or sixty years ago (which is, I fancy, the time 
when rather young people think old-fashioned servants 
lived) they all got up early. We are certainly not the 
worst among the nations, but I do think that late rising 
amounts almost to a national fault. These things are 
greatly the result of climate; but to insist on maids get- 
ting up in the dark, when there is very little to do, and 
to give the order that the kitchen fire is to be lit at 6.30, 
when the family do not breakfast till nine or half -past, 
seems to me almost tyrannical, though we have a per- 
fect right to expect that the water should be hot and the 
breakfast ready at whatever time we choose to order it. 
For two months in the winter I always postpone the 
breakfast hour from eight to half -past, and I always 
use — for health reasons — cold water all the year round ; 
but I never have the slightest difficulty in getting break- 
fast punctually at eight, though I feel quite sure of one 
thing, that- if I did not get up early no one else would. 
It seems a relief to some people's consciences to insist 
on the early rising of others, when they lie in bed late 
themselves. Servants are the first to remember that 
they can go to bed early, when very often their masters 
and mistresses cannot. I think all of us shorten our 
living hours by taking more sleep than is at all neces- 
sary. As an example of the strength of some men, Mr. 
Max Muller mentions that the great Baron Humboldt 
complained that as he got old he wanted more sleep — 
'four hours at least. When I was young, 7 he con- 
tinued, 'two hours of sleep was enough forme.' Mr. 



FEBRUARY 197 

Max Miiller ventured to express his doubts, apologising 
for differing from him on any physiological fact. ' It 
is quite a mistake,' said Humboldt, ' though it is a very 
widely spread one, to think that we want seven or eight 
hours' sleep. When I was your age I simply lay down 
on the sofa, turned down my lamp, and after two hours' 
sleep was as fresh as ever.' 

Of all servants that I have known in my life, the 
ones I have admired and respected most are the chil- 
dren's nurses. The love and devotion they give to 
children not their own is extraordinary. The highest 
life which George Eliot could imagine for 'Romola,' 
after the disappointment and failure of her own life, was 
to attend and minister to the children of others. Nurses 
will often refuse to leave children, even when it is for 
their interest to do so, knowing all the same, quite well, 
the time will come when the children will leave them, as 
an animal leaves its mother when it no longer wants 
her. I asked a nurse of this type once, when she was 
getting old, why she had never married. '0, m'um,' 
she said, ' can't you guess ? I had passed my life in the 
nursery amongst ladies and gentlemen ; my own class 
who wished to marry me were distasteful to me, and I 
was too proud for anything else.' This last half- 
sentence, with its faint allusion to having once loved 
someone above her, touched me supremely. Servants 
must so often pass through a temptation of the kind — 
pride in those they love being such a great stimulus to 
the affection and constancy of women. I think it is 
very desirable that children should early come down- 
stairs for their meals, and the nurse go to hers with the 
other servants. She does not very often like this; but 
it is for her good, and much more for her own happi- 
ness, that she should not lose touch with her class and 
isolate herself on a slightly raised position, which, from 



198 MORE POT-POURRI 

the very nature of the circumstances, can only lead to 
unhappiness. 

Nothing is of more importance than to help servants 
with their money affairs. They are very ignorant and 
very improvident, though often very generous. The 
extravagant servant will listen to no reason about 
putting by for the 'rainy day,' and the best among 
themselves constantly help to support some of their own 
relations. If they are willing and the mistress is tact- 
ful, talking over their affairs is often of great use, 
especially in giving them an idea what to do with their 
savings, if they have any ; as, like other classes, they 
constantly lose their money in unfortunate investments 
offering high interest, and sometimes are even attracted 
to do this by 'big' names on the prospectus, often those 
of connections of their employers, which they look upon 
as a guarantee for security. 

Whenever depression comes upon me from associat- 
ing with those who are complaining about the ways and 
fashions of the time they live in and the ruin of their 
own generation, whether in the classes above or those 
below them, I fly to some of the books of the eighteenth 
century, and never fail to get the consolation I require. 
What has received the greatest abuse in my time is the 
Board School education and the destruction it has 
wrought amongst those who become domestic servants. 
I myself totally disbelieve this. First of all, those who 
go into the higher schools are very few in number, and 
nothing is so important in a free country as that all 
should have the power to rise, if their talents fit them 
for it. Here is a sentence of Oliver Goldsmith's, in one 
of his essays. In his time it was a higher class that met 
with his disapproval, but it reminds me of remarks that 
I am constantly hearing now about those who used to be 
called 'the uneducated': 



FEBRUARY 199 

'Amidst the frivolous pursuits and pernicious dissi- 
pations of the present age, a respect for the qualities of 
the understanding still prevails to such a degree that 
almost every individual pretends to have a taste for the 
Belles -Lettres. The spruce 'prentice sets up for a critic, 
and the puny beau piques himself on being a con- 
noisseur. Without assigning causes for this universal 
presumption, we shall proceed to observe that if it was 
attended with no other inconvenience than that of 
exposing the pretender to the ridicule of those few who 
can sift his pretensions, it might be unnecessary to 
undeceive the public, or to endeavour at the reformation 
of innocent folly productive of no evil to the common- 
wealth.' 

Spending youth in school may prevent a young ser- 
vant from knowing her duties as a servant so well as if 
she had been brought up at home ; but, on the other 
hand, being moderately well educated makes it far easier 
to learn, and I maintain that, with a very little practical 
teaching, the modern schoolgirl makes an excellent 
servant. But no one can have a well-ordered house on 
a small scale who is constantly leaving home or con- 
stantly changing servants. An indifferent servant who 
knows your ways is better than the good servant who is 
quite fresh to the work in your house. Leaving home 
often means a badly kept house, of that I am sure, 
unless many members of the family remain at home and 
give plenty of employment to everybody. Then, per- 
haps, the real mistress of the house may be very little 
missed. 

The fulness of life, the selfishness of life, often 
prompt the modern housewife to throw up the sponge, 
to rush away to the idleness of the hotel or the lodging ; 
but it is a cowardly wish — a wish, except in real bad 
health, to be ashamed of. Our troubles and sorrows, be 



2oo MORE POT-POURRI 

they real or imaginary, go with us, and our only useful- 
ness is at home. Here is a poem written by one of that 
brave trio, the Bronte sisters — Ellis Bell (Emily Bronte) 
— which, if not so subtle as Lionel Tennyson's 'Sym- 
pathy,' has a strong ring about it — that hand -shake in 
life's way which helps so many : 

SYMPATHY 

There should be no despair for you 

While nightly stars are burning, 
While evening pours its silent dew, 

And sunshine gilds the morning. 

There should be no despair, though tears 

May flow down like a river. 
Are not the best beloved of years 

Around your heart for ever ? 

They weep, you weep; it must be so: 

Winds sigh as you are sighing, 
And winter sheds its grief in snow 

Where autumn leaves are lying. 

Yet these revive, and from their fate 

Your fate cannot be parted. 
Then journey on, if not elate, 

Still never broken-hearted! 

I am told by young married women that so very 
much attention has been given to cooking of late that 
most girls of the leisured classes now know something 
about it, or, at any rate, turn to books or go to some 
school of cookery to learn ; but that they are quite ignorant 
about training servants in other work, especially inex- 
perienced girls who have done more schooling than 
cleaning in their childhood, and who think anyone can 
be a housemaid. There is excellent instruction on many 
points in that book I named before, ' How to be Happy 



FEBRUARY 201 

though Married.' It dwells, however, rather on manage- 
ment of husband and house than actually on teaching 
the servants their duties. A really well-housemaided 
room requires but very rarely that terrible turning -out 
— when everything is upside down for a day, and things 
are mislaid, and some things are never found again — 
which is the terror of all masters and mistresses. Two 
things are essential in a well-kept house, and, unfortu- 
nately they war against each other ; one is continually 
having plenty of open windows, and the other is a pre- 
vention of any accumulation of dust. This can only be 
fought by continual wiping and dusting. When the 
mistress of a house is looking through cupboards and 
larders, and insisting that they should be well aired, the 
servant's view is that then 'so much dust gets in.' And 
yet, by a 'cussedness ' peculiar to themselves, they con- 
stantly leave ice -safes open, which of course — to act 
properly — should be kept tightly closed, and never 
opened at all except for the minute when things are 
taken out or put in. When the ice is melted, they 
should always be carefully cleaned out. The following 
is, I consider, a good way of keeping things from dust 
in a larder without shutting the windows : Instead of 
the usual perforated tin covers, which get rusty and 
shabby and cannot be cleaned, I have neat covers of all 
sizes (made at home) of rather thick zinc wire, and then 
I cover these with clean butter -muslin, which can be 
renewed or washed directly it gets dirty. They should 
have a twisted zinc wire handle at the top, to lift the 
cover on and off quite easily. The principle is the 
same as the outdoor covers for keeping off spring frost 
on young plants, recommended in my former book. 

The real fault of all the houses I go into to-day, my 
own included, though less so than some, is that they are 
far two full. Things are sure to accumulate. Avoid 



202 MORE POT-POURRI 

rubbish, frills and valances, draperies and bows, and all 
the terrible devices of the modern upholsterer. They 
all mean dust and dirt in a very short time, especially in 
London, and a labour to keep clean — which, in fact, no 
one carries out, and which is only very temporarily 
rectified by the spring cleaning once a year. I have a 
French domestic book which I think fascinating and 
instructive, just because it is French, and much less 
showy and more primitive than English books of the 
same kind. It is in two volumes, is called 'Maison 
Rustique des Dames,' and is by Madame Millet Robinet. 
It has had an immense sale in France, and all the little 
details of household life seem more dignified and less 
tiresome when read in excellent French. 

I will translate one receipt for the destruction of flies 
that seems to me good, and I wish I had known of it 
when travelling abroad in hot weather and staying in 
small hotels : ' Half fill a tumbler with soapy water. 
Cut a slice of bread half an inch thick ; cover the under 
side with honey, sugar, jam — anything that attracts 
flies. Cut a small hole in the middle, larger at the top 
than the bottom ; fix the piece of bread in the top of the 
tumbler. The flies crawl in after the sweet jam, and 
are quietly suffocated.' The book abounds in useful 
hints of all kinds. 

In my youth, tea -leaves were always used for sweep- 
ing carpets. Then came the idea that they stained and 
injured the colour of light carpets. This is to be recti- 
fied by rinsing the tea -leaves well in cold water and 
wringing them out before they are used. There is no 
magic in the tea — it is the damp substance of the leaves 
that gathers the dust. There is an excellent thing now 
sold, called 'carpet soap,' which really revives the 
colour of dirty rugs and carpets. To sweep without 
using something moist merely diffuses dirt. Covering a 



FEBRUARY 203 

broom with a wet cloth is the best way of cleaning under 
beds, wardrobes, etc. — anything to prevent the dust 
flying. 

If every room is taken in turn and extra cleaned once 
a week, the necessity for the complete 'turning -out' is 
obviated. Most people will say, 'Everyone knows that'; 
and yet it is astonishing how one has to remember to 
tell the same things, over and over again, to each fresh 
young servant that comes. And one often lives a long 
life without knowing most commonplace things oneself. 
I never knew till the other day that black -leading fire- 
brick destroyed all its qualities for radiating heat and 
made it like iron. It ought never to have been black- 
leaded at all. 

Tin jugs are excellent for hot water, but they must 
be cleaned inside with sand -paper, or they rust and 
spoil. 

It is almost despairing how even excellent and ex- 
perienced servants forget that no crockery can or will 
stand boiling water being poured into it suddenly, espe- 
cially in cold weather ; the quick expansion makes all 
glass and china fly. But the same thing goes on, over 
and over again, in every household, from expensive 
dishes or dairy -pans to servants' jugs and tumblers, and 
partly one is oneself to blame for not having explained 
the simple fact to each new girl who comes. 

In the chapter on Furnishing, in my. first book, I 
recommended that young people should go to sales 
instead of buying rubbish at wholesale furniture ware- 
houses. Commenting on this, the excellent and amusing 
writer of ' Pages from a Private Diary ' reproves me and 
says: ' Why drive good taste into a mere fashion, and so 
quadruple the price of pretty things for those who can 
appreciate them V This was not my intention, though I 
admit it may be a result of my advice. But I only wish 



2o 4 MORE POT-POURRI 

someone had given me the hint when I was young. 
However, if it does improve taste, and if it does raise the 
price of pretty things, surely one's sympathies in such 
matters are rather with those who have to sell the things 
they value than with those who can afford to buy 
them. My one object, both in this book and the last, 
is to give everyone — so far as I can — anything I know 
or have learnt in a long life. And in writing the first 
book, under the impression that it would be an abso- 
lute failure, I used to console myself by saying : 
' Well, if it helps ten people just a little, that makes 
it worth while.' 

Old Sir Thomas Browne, in his quaint and self- 
opinionative way, puts pretty strongly what I feel : ' It 
is an honorable object to see the reasons of other men 
wear our Liveries, and their borrowed understandings do 
homage to the bounty of ours ; it is the cheapest way of 
beneficence, and, like the natural charity of the Sun, 
illuminates another without obscuring itself. To be 
reserved and caitiff in this part of goodness is the 
sordidest piece of covetousness, and more contemptible 
than pecuniary Avarice.' 

February 2nd. — I have been reading lately two fasci- 
nating books on natural history by George D. Leslie, the 
painter — one is called ' Letters to Marco' and the other 
'Riverside Letters' — descriptions of his own home on 
the river. The little illustrations have a great deal of 
artistic individuality, and are to me, though slight, very 
superior to the ordinary photographic reproductions. 
His description of cultivating the difficult ' Iris Susiana' 
is so good that I think I will copy it : 

'As ill-luck would have it, I missed the first burst into 
bloom of an Iris Susiana, to which I had been looking 
forward with great eagerness. This Iris is very difficult 
to manage in our fickle climate. It is six years since it 



FEBRUARY 205 

bloomed with me, then it did so in the open garden; but 
I have never succeeded in repeating this triumph in the 
open air, and this is the first success, after many failures, 
under glass. This Iris is in its native land (Levant) 
generally covered with snow during the short, sharp 
winter, and makes its extremely rapid growth during the 
short spring which follows ; after blooming, it endures 
the long, baking drought of summer, which ripens the 
tuberous roots thoroughly. Of course, in our country, 
such an arrangement in the open ground can hardly be 
expected, and though, when planted in the open, the 
tubers thrive and grow amazingly, they make in our 
damp autumns far too early a start, throwing up a num- 
ber of strong green blades, which are almost always 
doomed to destruction by the last frosts of winter with- 
out showing the least sign of bloom. The books say 
that they require some protection, such as a hand-light, 
in the winter, but I have tried it, over and over again, 
without the slightest success. In my little greenhouse, 
however, I think I have mastered the difficulties of its 
culture at last. My method is to defer planting until 
very late in the autumn. I put the tubers into rather a 
small pot of nearly pure river sand. This pot I place 
inside another larger one, and plug the space between 
the pots with dry moss. I place the pots on a shelf in 
the sunniest part of the greenhouse, and give no water 
at all until some time after Christmas. Strange to say, 
the green shoots begin to show before the plants have 
received a drop of water. I give the water very liberally 
at first, but in great moderation as the plants shoot into 
growth. I let it have all the sun that shines, and, if the 
frosts are very severe at any time, I take the pots into 
my studio whilst the extreme cold lasts. This year my 
treatment has been quite successful, and the plant burst 
into bloom on the 4th of April.' 



2o6 MORE POT-POURRI 

This receipt will be extremely interesting to many 
gardeners, and especially those — and they are not few — 
who are striving to produce flowering Irises from 
January to August. 

I believe I mentioned before Mrs. Brightwen's 'Guide 
to the Study of Botany. 7 I should recommend every 
amateur gardener to get it. It is a clear, cheap, popular 
book, and any grown-up person or child who wishes to 
understand the rudiments of the mysteries of botany 
could not do better than to have this book as a com- 
panion. 

Through the year, books on natural history and 
gardening must be our constant companions to be any 
real good. We must verify for ourselves what the 
book tells us. This greatly increases the interest of life 
in the country, and no one is ever dull or bored who 
can learn about plants and insects. I know, alas ! 
that to those who really love to dwell in towns it is no 
use speaking of such things. The poetry of life is 
never to be seen by them out of the streets; and children 
brought up in large towns rarely acquire a love of the 
country, I think. I remember when we were children, a 
friend who came from London to see us used to tell us 
she could not say her prayers in the country — it was 
so dreadfully still ! Fancy missing to that extent the 
city's noise, the rattle of the cabs down the street, or 
the measured tread of feet along the pavement ! It is 
lucky, perhaps, that what we are used to is what we 
like best. 

A collector of old books objected to my great praise 
of ' Les Roses,' by Redoute. He says : ' I do not attach 
the same value to it that you do, and have never found 
it of much use, as nearly all the Roses are hybrids and 
varieties many of which have passed away.' I was no 
doubt mistaken, but my impression was that the lovely 



FEBRUARY 207 

illustrations represent in many instances the wild Roses 
of the world which have ceased to be cultivated, but 
which could easily be produced again from seed by those 
who took the trouble. This, I believe, Mr. Paul is 
doing. I think, as I said before, that in a soil where 
Roses grow easily a collection as large as possible of 
these same wild Roses would be exceedingly interesting. 
My correspondent goes on to describe a book — which I 
had never seen — that treats of all the wild Roses of the 
world. He says : ' You should get a coloured copy of 
Lindley's "Monograph of Roses," 1819. It is an excel- 
lent book, both as to plates and descriptions, and, though 
not common, is cheap. You can see them all at Kew. 
As you do not mention it, I fancy you cannot have the 
true York and Lancaster — Shakespeare's — a very dif- 
ferent plant from the one with the splash petals. This 
difference is so well described in a page of Canon Ella- 
combe's endlessly interesting " Gloucestershire Garden" 
that I give it to you : 

"A second favourite double or semi -double Rose is 
the York and Lancaster, of which there are two kinds ; 
one a very old Rose in which the petals are sometimes 
white and sometimes pink, and sometimes white and 
pink in the same flower. This is without a doubt the 
'roses damasked, red and white' — the rose 'nor red 
nor white, had stolen of both' — of Shakespeare, and it 
is the R. versicolor of the old botanical writers. In the 
other sort, the petals are a rich crimson flaked with 
white ; it is a very handsome Rose, comparatively 
modern, and is the Rosa mundi of the ' Botanical Maga- 
zine,' 1794." ' I have lately seen a double Rosa lucida, 
a great improvement on the single one ; also a double 
white Rosa rugosa. 

Since writing the above, I have succeeded in pro- 
curing through my Frankfort friend a coloured copy of 



2o8 MORE POT-POURRI 

'Rosarum Monographia/ by John Lindley (London, 
1820). On the title-page is this nice little motto : 

E guadagnar, se si potra, quel dono, 
Che stato detto n' e, che Eose sono. 

The letterpress is far more interesting and instruc- 
tive, but the actual artistic treatment of the plates is 
less beautiful and delicate than Redoute's. 

February 9th. — Where people suffer much from the 
birds eating out buds, as I do, I strongly recommend 
picking some of the branches of Prunus Pissardii when 
in bud, and sticking them into Japanese wedges or into 
ordinary glass vases. This, in so far as house decora- 
tion is concerned, defeats the bullfinches, and the buds 
come out very well in the room. This is the same with 
all the early -flowering blossoms. The pink Almond and 
Pyrtis japonica are far more lovely flowered in water in 
a warm room than left on the trees exposed to the cold 
nights and the nipping east wind. 

February 10th. — On this day list year, I went to one 
of the Drill Hall Horticultural Shows, and was 
especially delighted with Amygdalus davidiana ; it is 
one of the earliest of the flowering shrubs. I immedi- 
ately bought a plant, and on my return this year I 
found it in full flower, every branch wreathed with the 
lovely delicate white flowers. I only wish I had bought 
three or four plants instead of one. I shall certainly do 
so next autumn. The branches I ventured to cut have 
lasted over ten days in the room in water, and those left 
on the plant have turned brown from the frosty nights. 

I went to a neighbour to-day, and found the house 
filled with pots of Genista prmcox . They came from 
Waterer's, and a more charming effect in a large room I 
never saw. The plant was beautifully grown and one 
mass of pale lemon -coloured bloom — sweet -smelling, 



FEBRUARY 209 

too. I have long had it outside, and it does very well ; 
but it seems difficult to strike, though I think it could 
be managed just before it is in full bloom. I expect 
what I saw was grown from seed, but it is not in 
Thompson's list. 

February 20th. — I returned home to-day, after stay- 
ing some little time in London. Apart from other 
reasons, it is worth going away for the joy of returning. 
While in London I again went to the Drill Hall Show, 
on the 14th, some few days later than last year. Noth- 
ing struck me so much this year as Amy g dolus davidiana 
did the year before ; but it was an especially good show 
of flowers for so early in the season. Year by year the 
Cyclamens grow larger and finer in colour, but I do not 
think they are plants that have been greatly improved 
by increased cultivation and Brobdingnagian size. I 
prefer the pretty little, old, sweet -smelling types. 
Pans full of miniature Daffodils were very attractive, 
and Messrs. Hill & Co., of Lower Edmonton, had a 
lovely and most uncommon collection of greenhouse 
Ferns. Nephrodium membranifolium and an Aspidium 
struck me particularly, from the charm of their growth. 
The fashionable little, bright pink Begonia Gloire de 
Lorraine was in large quantities and most effective. 
The lovely Iris reticulata was also exhibited. 

The London streets were more than ever full of 
beautiful flowers, none beating the showy branches of 
the Mimosa, Acacia dealbata, from the south of France. 

I found at home that the Crocuses had made much 
progress, and the Daffodils, instead of only showing 
green spears, are all now in bud. The complete stillness 
is so delicious to me ! 

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude ! 
But grant me still a friend in my retreat, 
To whom I may whisper, ' Solitude is sweet.' 



210 MORE POT-POURRI 

That is what the young feel. The old can do without 
companionship. 

My little conservatory looked bright and full of 
bloom. Last year I had a lot of Daffodils in pans, and 
they did very well and forced easily. This year I have 
Hyacinths ; but, though they were not very good bulbs 
— some being successful, and some failures — still they 
look well and picturesque in the open pans ; far prettier 
than in pots. I have one little oriental slop-basin filled 
with the bright blue Scillas, which is very effective ; 
and the Freesias are always most satisfactory. Mr. 
Sydenham recommends buying them each year ; but I 
think, cheap as they are, that must be advice rather for 
the seller than for the buyer, as with us, treated as 
recommended before, they improve and increase, and, 
when there is so much to buy, that is what I call satis- 
factory. The common Lachenalias do the same. The 
Lachenalia aurea is more difficult to increase. Lache- 
nalias do not require so much baking and drying as the 
Freesias do, and should be kept in half shade in a frame 
after the leaves die down, and not quite dry. Early 
re -potting in July is desirable for both. 

To make variety in colour, and because they are such 
useful flowers for picking — their duration in water 
being almost endless — I have several pots of the Orchid 
Dendrobium mobile, and one fine spike of Odontoglossum 
Alexandria in full bloom. My large, old-fashioned, 
sweet -smelling white Azalea, which has been so faithful 
a friend for many years, has failed this year — either 
from mere fatigue of being forced, or from being over- 
dried and pot-bound last summer, which I think more 
likely. I have a young plant of the same which is now 
in full flower — Azalea indica alba it is called in the 
catalogues. But often other varieties are sent out under 
the same name which have no scent at all, and are con- 



FEBRUARY 211 

sequently much less worth growing in a small green- 
house. My old plant had the most delicious, delicate, 
and yet powerful perfume. We have now broken it up 
and re -potted small pieces, with the hope that they may 
grow again. The large pots of Imantophyllums are 
looking glorious. They are rather handsomer varieties, 
both in size and colour, than the usual ones. I got 
them two or three years ago from Veitch, who has 
specially improved these most useful and showy of 
winter -flowering plants. A small, shrubby plant of the 
bright yellow Coronilla gives another spot of bright 
colour by the blue -green of the sweet -leaved Eucalyp- 
tus. We have brought the forcing of the Polygonatum 
multiflorum (Solomon's Seal) to most useful perfection; 
and, put back in a reserve bed after flowering, it is ready 
to force again after a year or two. It is the easiest and 
most effective of the hardy plants to bring on in a 
greenhouse. 

February 22nd. — I brought back with me from 
Ireland last year several plants of the Iris stylosa. The 
white one has flowered, but not the blue ones, though 
these were put in two situations — some in good, rich 
soil, and some in poor ground. These latter, perhaps, 
may flower later. One of the reasons why Irises should 
be so much cultivated is that they have the merit, which 
can never be too much appreciated, of flowering admira- 
bly in water if picked in bud. A flower can hardly 
claim a greater merit for domestic purposes, and, for the 
same reason, they are well adapted for travelling. 

February 23rd. — A treat has come for all of us 
amateur gardeners this month in the publication of a 
long -looked -for gardening book by Miss Jekyll, charm- 
ingly illustrated from photographs of her own. But, 
good as are these reproductions, in my opinion they can 
never compare with woodcuts or steel engravings, and 



212 MORE POT-POURRI 

they give but a faint idea of the unusual charm and 
beauty of her self -created garden. Her book is most 
truly called, 'Wood and Garden,' and is a never-ending 
lesson of how to lay out a piece of ground by using its 
natural advantages instead of hopelessly destroying them 
by clearing the ground to make a garden. In this case 
there can be no imitation, as, without the copse -covered 
piece of ground which she selected, no one could produce 
the same sort of garden. Nature must have had her 
way first. But the charm of the combination of nature 
and art as carried out by Miss Jekyll is very great. We 
always open these books at the month we are in, and 
she says : ' There is always in February some one day, 
at least, when one smells the yet distant, coming sum- 
mer.' Such a day has been ours to-day, and I enjoyed 
it doubly in consequence of having so lately returned 
from London. And the forwardness of the spring — it 
really is more forward even than last year — makes one 
enjoy it more. Though everything is growing so fast, 
it is quite agitating for the gardener, giving the feeling 
that all the work is behindhand. I am told that in my 
first book many thought I recommended that things 
should be done too soon; but, in my experience, human 
nature rather tends to reversing the proverb, and acts 
on the principle of 'Never do to-day what can be done 
to-morrow.' And in all things about a garden, except 
when Jack Frost is to be feared, it is best to be early 
rather than late. 

My January -sown Green Peas are coming up very 
well, but they would not survive except for the pea -wire 
coverings, as the sparrows would nip out the hearts. 
The black cotton strung about the Primus Pissardii has 
answered. I have far more bloom than I have ever had 
before. 

As I rush about the garden, and see how the Daffies 



FEBRUARY 



213 



grow an inch each day in such weather, in spite of very 
cold nights, and though I have the usual endless ' Mar- 
tharish' bothers of life inside the house, I can indeed 
say, with Thomson: 

I care not, Fortune, what you me deny ; 

You cannot rob me of free nature's grace; 
You cannot shut the windows of the sky, 

Through which Aurora shows her bright'ning face; 
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace 

The woods and lawns by living stream at eve. 
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, 

And I their toys to the great children leave. 

Of fancy, reason, virtue, nought can me bereave. 

To appreciate Miss Jekyll's book in a way to profit 
by it, one must read and re-read it. One more quota- 
tion I must make. In 'May 'she says: 'The blooming 
of the Cowslip is the signal for a search for the Morel, 
one of the best of the edible fungi. It grows in open 
woods, or where the undergrowth has not yet grown 
high, and frequently in old parks and pastures, near or 
under Elms. It is quite unlike any other fungus, shaped 
like a tall egg, with the pointed end upwards, on a short, 
hollow stalk, and looking something like a sponge. It 
has a delicate and excellent flavour, and is perfectly 
wholesome.' I have, alas! spent nearly all my life, and 
I have never searched for the Morel ! Have you, dear 
reader ? 

February 26th. — I have been to-day planting large 
quantities of the roots of the Tropceolum speciosum in 
various parts of the garden. These were given to me 
by a kind neighbour. He says the great secret (and he 
is very successful himself) is digging the holes quite 
four feet deep, filling them in with leaf -mould and the 
light earth, and planting the roots a foot below the sur- 
face, and then they have two feet of loose soil to work 



214 MORE POT-POURRI 

down into. I hope they may be successful ; I do hate 
being beaten. At least some must succeed, one would 
think, planted in five different situations. They have 
to be labelled with large white labels, as the great dan- 
ger, if one's back is turned, is of their being dug up, 

Driving last year on this day, I find I noticed the 
Nettles were well up in the hedges and just ready for 
picking, and the catkins were hanging from the Hazel 
boughs. A little Celandine, on a moist bank, opened its 
yellow star in the sun. I have never seen it cultivated 
in gardens, which — weed though it is — seems a pity, and 
I think I shall try it in patches under some shrubs. No 
doubt it is rather its early appearance than its shining 
beauty that has made it so loved of the poets. Words- 
worth describes it and its surroundings with grace and 
truth in the following well-known poem: 

Pansies, Lilies, King-cups, Daisies, 

Let theni live upon their praises ; 

There's a flower that shall be mine, 

'Tis the little Celandine ! 

Ere a leaf is on a bush, 

In the time before the thrush 

Has a thought about its nest, 

.Thou wilt come with half a call, 
Spreading out thy glossy breast, 

Like a careless prodigal; 
Telling tales about the sun, 
When we've little warmth or none. 

Careless of thy neighbourhood, 
Thou dost show thy pleasant face ; 

On the moor and in the wood, 
In the lane — there's not a place, 

Howsoever mean it be, 

But 'tis good enough for thee. 

I picked to-day and ate with great relish my first 
Dandelion salad. I can recommend it again and again 



FEBRUARY 215 

to salad lovers ; but it must be very carefully washed, 
as any grit entirely spoils it. Later on the leaves get 
tough and bitter. 

February 27th. — The last few days have been very 
cold, but I have some most beautiful branches of Alm- 
ond in full flower in the house. They were picked, 
as I have explained, whilst in bud, and put to expand 
in the greenhouse. This method defies the frosts and 
wind, and greatly prolongs the time of enjoying the 
blossoms. 

About this time last year I cut away another bed of 
Laurels, which we had not time to do in the autumn, 
and it has made a nice snug corner for some newly- 
bought flowering shrubs — Lilacs which I had not got, 
such as Dr. Lindley and Charles X., and some white 
ones ; a double -flowering Cherry, which is such a beau- 
tiful thing (though I fear it will never do well here, as 
it likes a strong, damp soil) ; a Cerasus, Pseudo Cera- 
sus, Double Crimson Peach, Hamamelis japonica (which 
has died), Eucryphia pinnatifolia, and the before -men- 
tioned Amygdalus davidiana alba. I have a great 
many Spiraeas in the garden, but never till now the 
Spiraea confusa, which forces very well, and is a lovely 
thing. I have put it, for the present, with these new 
shrubs. I find it a distinct advantage putting new 
things in one place, as then one sees how they do, and 
what spreads and flourishes, and what is only a dry 
stick and a label the following year. It is mysterious 
why some plants die. I bought two beautiful Tea Roses 
in pots, which were planted outside and drawn through 
into the greenhouse — one a Marechal Niel, the other 
Niphetos. Both flourished equally well through the 
summer. The next spring, without any apparent rea- 
son, the Marechal Niel having made its leaves, turned 
brown and died — very provoking, as in this way one 



216 MORE POT-POURRI 

loses a whole year's growth. I think anyone who grows 
forced Tea Roses for picking will find they do far better 
and look more satisfactory in water if floated in large 
glass bowls than if only their stalks are in water. 

I received a letter to-day from the Engadine, describ- 
ing a phase of modern luxury which reads strangely to 
those who live quietly in country corners. My friend 
writes from San Moritz, and thus describes an episode 
in a fancy-dress ball: 'In the cotillon they had an 
enormous silver sledge, smothered in the most gor- 
geously lovely flowers — Imantophyllums, Lilium spe- 
ciosum, Lilies -of -the -Valley with stalks eight inches 
long, white Lilac and Prunus. And all these looked 
as if they had just been freshly gathered ; yet the 
whole thing came from a flower -shop at Frankfurt -on- 
the-Main. I must say I never saw anything prettier, 
and in the sledge sat a lovely downy young English 
beauty, scattering bunches of flowers about, as they 
dragged her round the room. The whole thing seemed 
beautiful Fairyland, up here in this world of ice and 
snow. 7 I suppose it is no more luxury for those who 
can afford it than my humble little greenhouse, which 
also costs money ; yet one cannot help feeling sorry 
that these beautiful hothouse flowers should have been 
dragged up there for the wasteful enjoyment of one 
evening. 

Receipts 

Poulet a la Valencienne. — Cut a good fowl into 
pieces. Wipe it dry, but do not put it into water. 
Take a saucepan, put in a wineglassful of olive oil, and 
add two cloves of garlic. Be careful that it does not 
burn ; for if it does, it will turn bitter. Stir the garlic 
until it is fried. Put in the chicken. Keep stirring it 



FEBRUARY 217 

about while it fries, then add some salt, and continue 
to stir. Whenever a sound of cracking is heard, stir 
it again. When the chicken is well browned, which 
will take from five to ten minutes, stirring constantly, 
put in chopped onions, three or four chopped red or 
green chillies, and stir about. If once the contents 
catch the pan, the dish is spoilt. Then add tomatoes 
divided into quarters, and parsley. Take three tea- 
cupfuls of well -washed rice, and mix up well together. 
Then add hot stock, enough to cover over the whole. 
Let it boil once, then set aside to simmer till the rice 
becomes tender and done. The great art consists in 
having the rice turned out granular and separate, and 
not in a pudding state, which is sure to be the case if a 
cover is put over the dish, so that the steam is con- 
densed. It should be served up in the casserole in 
which it is cooked. Bits of fish, sausage, and chicken 
livers may be added ; also a little saffron. 

Chasse. — Ingredients : One onion, six tomatoes, 
three potatoes, a slice of ham, some grated cheese, red 
pepper, very little allspice. Fry the sliced onion lightly 
in some lard and butter mixed. Add the tomatoes and 
ham, both cut into small pieces. When they are well 
browned, add some water and then the potatoes, hav- 
ing first cut them in dice shapes. Let all cook until the 
potatoes are done ; then, just before serving, mix in 
grated cheese, well flavoured with red pepper, until the 
sauce is 'ropy.' Have a very hot dish, pour the sauce 
on to it, and serve carefully poached eggs on the top. 
This makes a delightful breakfast dish. 

Water Souchet. — Take six flounders, fillet four; 
put the fillets into a saucepan. The carcasses and the 
others put into a stewpau with some stock, a bit of 
parsley and a little carrot, which boil for an hour. 
Strain, and shred some carrot, also parsley root and a 



218 MORE POT-POURRI 

few sprigs of parsley. Boil for ten minutes more. Put 
the fillets into the oven to cook. When the souchet is 
dished, put in the fillets, and serve with brown bread 
and butter, and lemons. 

Everything of the kind is now to be bought, but I 
think the following few receipts may turn out useful. 
In washing paint, so many do not know how injurious 
is soda or yellow soap or soft soap. 

For Washing 1 White Paint. — Shred common yellow 
household soap, and boil it down in a saucepan with 
sufficient whitening to make it into a thick paste. Put 
it in a jar, and use a little on a rag when required. It 
will clean the paint perfectly, and will not turn it yel- 
low. Never use soda for paint ; it spoils it and marks 
it at once. 

Furniture Polish. — To clean, polish, and take marks 
out of furniture, ' Sanitas Furniture Polish' is excellent 
and not expensive ; but the following is an old re- 
ceipt and very good : Equal quantities of methylated 
spirit, vinegar, and linseed oil. The bottle should 
be well shaken before using, or the spirit remains on 
the top and will burn the polished surface of whatever 
it touches. 

For Polishing New Brown Boots and Shoes. — I 
am sure many people will agree with me as to the 
extreme ugliness of new brown shoes ; yet we all must 
have them new sometimes. An excellent way of cor- 
recting this ugly newness is to rub the leather three 
times in succession with vaseline. After that, clean 
them in the ordinary way with brown cream, and they 
will take the polish as if they were months old. 

To Remove Fruit Stains. — Soak the stain in a 
glass of water in which you have put ten to twelve 
drops of sulphuric acid. Then wash with clear water. 

To Prevent Lamp-wicks from Smoking.— Steep 



FEBRUARY 219 

the wicks in very strong vinegar ; then let them dry 
completely before they are used. 

A series of penny books, published as the ' Domestic 
Science Series,' is full of useful information. The only 
one I actually know, called ' Manual of Housewifery for 
Elementary Schools,' by Helena Head, to be bought at 
4 Princes Road, Liverpool, seems to me thoroughly 
practical. 

One thing I must copy out of Mrs. Roundell's most 
excellent 'Practical Cookery Book,' more especially as it 
is not a cooking receipt, but a cure for one of the most 
distinct worries that affect nearly every house in Eng- 
land, more especially if keeping down in the spring is 
neglected — and yet how few servants do not neglect it 
till it has become a plague! — I mean blackbeetles. Mrs. 
Roundell gives the following receipt, and we found it 
excellent in a new flat in London which swarmed with 
them : 

'To Destroy Blackbeetles. — Not long ago the 
kitchens and bakeries of the Fir Vale Union Work- 
house at Sheffield swarmed with blackbeetles, to such an 
extent that the Government Inspector feared the build- 
ings would have to be pulled down. The insects even 
got into the soup and bread provided for the inmates, in 
spite of all vigilance and every remedy. The Board of 
Guardians, in despair, consulted the curator of the 
Sheffield Museum— Mr. Howarth, F.Z.S.-^and he in- 
vented a paste which in a short time completely freed 
the workhouse from blackbeetles. This "Union" cock- 
roach paste can be had in tins from Mr. Hewitt, chemist, 
66 Division street, Sheffield. It never fails in its effect.' 

'Keating's Powder' is also effectual if the beetles are 
swept up in the morning and destroyed. 



MARCH 

Confessions about diet — Cures for rheumatism — Effects of tea- 
drinking — Sparing animal life a bad reason for vegetarianism 
— The Berlin foot-race — Mrs. Crow in Edinburgh — Bagehot on 
luxury — A word about babies — German and English nurseries — 
Sir Richard Thorne Thorne on raw milk — The New Education 
Difficulty of understanding young children— Gardening- 
Cooking. 

I feel at last the moment has come when I must make 
a confession. I am a non- meat -eater ! I know that 
this will probably entail the loss of the good opinion of 
my readers, and I should never have dreamt of bringing 
forward so personal a matter, had I not felt compelled 
to do so in consequence of the numbers of letters I have 
received in which the writers deplore their loss of health, 
their gout and rheumatism, and the general ailments 
that prevent their going into the garden, etc. This 
strikes me as unnatural and wrong. There is no reason 
at all, unless there be actual disease, that sickness 
should, as a matter of course, accompany old age any 
more than any other period of life. 

This chapter is not intended for the young or the 
healthy or the really sick, but for those chronic sufferers 
who are constantly appealing to the medical profession 
for ' something ' that will cure their aches and pains, 
their sleepless nights, their stiff joints, and their neu- 
ralgias, and who put all their faith in drugs which, even 
when they seem to do good, turn out to be palliatives, 
not cures — that is, in the case of constitutions where the 
ailments are the result of gout and rheumatism. 

(220) 



MARCH 221 

Some years ago all these symptoms in various degrees 
were mine, and I fully expected that they would increase 
with age ; but I was wrong — by gradual steps they all 
disappeared. Nothing, of course, makes the old young; 
but bad health, the chief dread of old age, I no longer 
have. I can work out in the garden with even greater 
impunity than I could have done twenty years ago. I 
take long journeys — say, of twenty-seven hours— with- 
out fatigue, and I sleep excellently. This all reads like 
an advertisement for a patent medicine, but it is noth- 
ing of the kind; in fact, for years I have taken no medi- 
cine at all. But if I am asked to account for this im- 
provement, in one word it is — diet. I have become an 
ardent advocate of non- meat -eating, but without any of 
those sentimental feelings about the killing of animals 
which many people have who yet continue to partake of 
ordinary food ; nor did it begin from the belief that 
meat is a frequent conveyor of poisons. I left it off at 
first simply as an experiment. I believe that meat, 
especially if eaten daily — the small quantities ferment 
the other foods — is on the whole deleterious to the health 
of the human race, and simply poisonous to the gouty, 
the rheumatic, or the neuralgic. 

All through my lifetime there seems to have been the 
strongest belief everywhere in Europe, amongst all 
classes (especially those who are habitually over -fed), 
that if they feel weak or anaemic, or what is called ' be- 
low par, 7 therefore they must try and eat more, and cram 
themselves with stimulating food, such as meat -juices, 
beef-tea, or even raw beef, and — as with drugs or alco- 
hol — for a time it often answers. The origin of this 
belief, no doubt, has come from the teaching of the 
medical profession, only disputed now and then by a 
solitary member. Surely this system is nearly on the 
level, and only one degree less harmful, than yielding to 



222 MORE POT-POURRI 

the request of the poor drunkard, who wildly cries for 
more of the very poison that is killing him. The imme- 
diate relief is actual and visible ; the after -reaction in 
both cases being the cause of fresh suffering. 

My object as a propagandist in the cause of non- 
meat-eating is merely to give others my experience, with 
the ordinary human desire that they may try a cure 
which has been so beneficial to myself. When, some 
years ago, chronic rheumatism was gaining upon me, I 
resorted to the usual solaces of the well-to-do. I con- 
sulted doctors, I took drugs, I left off wine — which be- 
fore the age of forty I had rarely taken, and after forty 
only in small quantities. I went to Aix-les- Bains. I 
got momentary relief from all these cures, but on the 
whole the malady gained upon me, and I looked forward 
to a cripply old age with great dread, knowing full well 
that it would prevent my enjoying my favourite occupa- 
tion of gardening. My family physician summed up the 
case with : 'Well, Mrs. Earle, at your age this rheuma- 
tism which has settled in the hips is extremely difficult 
of cure.' I repeated this to a vegetarian friend, who 
lent me a book, called 'The Science of Healing,' by L. 
Kuehne, a German non- medical man who practises a 
strict vegetarian water-cure at Leipzig. In consequence 
of reading this book, I undertook to try and cure myself. 
The results have been simply wonderful, and I find the 
kind of food I eat, now that I am used to it, entails no 
self-denial at all. I carried out the cure strictly for 
many months — almost as strictly as Kuehne recom- 
mends, only breaking his rule by a small amount of milk 
and butter, and I was greatly the better for it. I took 
absolutely no animal food, and neither cheese nor eggs. 
If ever I relapsed into ordinary diet, after a very little 
time the old pains reasserted themselves. My friends 
declared I looked old and ugly, and most of my family 



MARCH 223 

thought the first illness would play the part of the legs 
in the epitaph : 

Two bad legs and a troublesome cough, 
But the legs it was that carried her off. 

My own faith in the matter only grew and grew, but 
it has taken four or five years for me to be absolutely 
free of pain, and even to this day I occasionally feel 
twinges, which I immediately treat by diminishing in 
quantity what I generally eat. The result is invariably 
satisfactory, and unaccompanied by any feelings of 
weakness or fatigue. Last year I became the object of 
considerable jealousy to one of my friends, who could 
not understand why I had grown so much better. I, 
loth to encounter the anger of her numerous family by 
recommending my method, remarked — what I did not 
believe — that very likely my diet would not suit her. I 
am so tired of hearing that 'One man's meat is another 
man's poison' ! Seeing the marked improvement in me, 
and thinking the matter over after I had left, she tele- 
graphed to her London doctor, saying : ' Who is the 
great authority in London at this moment on gout and 
rheumatism?' He wired back: 'Dr. Haig, of Brook 
street.' She accordingly went to him. When next we 
met, one of her first remarks was : 'A most extraordi- 
nary thing has happened to me. I have been to a new 
doctor for my rheumatism, and his printed paper on diet 
is in all essentials what you practise, except that he 
orders more milk and cheese.' She handed me the leaf- 
let, and from this I got to know Dr. Haig and his most 
interesting book, 'Uric Acid as a Factor in the Causa- 
tion of Disease.' This book is rather medical for the 
ordinary public, who had better begin with his two- 
shilling book called ' Diet and FOod considered in Rela- 
tion to Strength and Power of Endurance, Training and 



224 MORE POT-POURRI 

Athletics.' On Dr. Haig's recommendation, I deserted 
the extreme strictness of the German cure, and I have 
undoubtedly felt stronger for taking more skimmed milk 
(separated would be better) and a little cheese, though 
whenever I am less well I go back to the Kuehne diet. 
It was the greatest satisfaction to me to find a man 
whose years of study and scientific investigations en- 
tirely corresponded with vay own groping experiences. 
If anybody now ever asks me about the matter, I say : 
'Read Dr. Haig's books, and then consult him or not, 
as you like.' His tables of diet are so severe that I am 
afraid they may tempt a great number of people to agree 

with the late Lord D , who, when sent a sample of 

sherry which was recommended to him as being essen- 
tially wholesome, wrote back that he found it so bitter 
and dry he much preferred the gout. 

Although it is rare to find a doctor who will recom- 
mend strict dieting in chronic cases, I think it is becom- 
ing equally rare for a doctor to make any objection if 
the patient himself proposes it. He will not risk offend- 
ing a patient by not giving him medicines and by greatly 
reducing his food. One can hardly blame a doctor for 
this, and it brings us to the conclusion that the initia- 
tive in matters of diet and abstinence must come from 
the patients themselves. 

Not many people seemed to take any interest in the 
health allusions in my last book. Still, I received the 
following letter, which, in a chapter bound to be unpop- 
ular, the few who read it may find as interesting as I 
did: 

' I have been specially interested in your health chap- 
ter, for if there is one subject more than another which 
ought to be thrashed out by the lay mind, it is health. 
On it depends, to a great extent, the future progress of 
mankind. As a rule, individuals lean to the idea that it 



MARCH 225 

is not a question for themselves to think on. They 
seem to imply that it is a question solely for the medical 
hierarchy. But these authorities are so hampered by 
the limitations engrained in them in their medical educa- 
tion that it is with difficulty any of them exercise a free 
mind on the subject. You have given examples, it is 
true, of some few ; and I know a few more, both here 
and in America, who have broken away and have given 
full vent to their reasoning powers. All hail to them, 
but they want supporting. There is no doubt that if 
doctors were to take up the reforms honestly they would 
do good, inasmuch as there is a blind faith in them on 
the part of the majority of people. But when has a 
profession reformed itself ? All reforms come from 
outside. 

' There are two great assumptions on which medicos 
act, and on which they iuipel their patients to act. The 
first is, that it is positively necessary, under all circum- 
stances, to eat every day in order to live. Dr. Keith, 
whose book I have just seen before I got yours, is an 
exception to this ; and Dr. Dewey, in America, in his 
"New Gospel of Health," is another. They show clearly 
that not only is it not necessary, but under certain con- 
ditions of illness it is positively injurious to eat. I have 
seen, I am sorry to say, food violently forced down the 
throat of a patient by a medical man when nature was 
evidently telling the patient that food was no good, but, 
on the contrary, was adding to the troubles. This is 
quite irrespective of what is suitable food and what is 
not. All I maintain is, that at times no food at all is re- 
quired, for it is then only by the absence of food that 
nature finds time to recuperate herself. The second 
assumption that the Faculty, as a body, insist on is, that 
meat is absolutely necessary for strength. Meat is no 
doubt a concentrated food, but concentrated foods are 



226 MORE POT-POURRI 

not necessarily nourishing. On the contrary, the waste 
that comes from them is most trying to all the organs of 
the body, which, after a time, break down entirely. 
There are heaps of foods which are natural foods, which 
easily assimilate, and which in their waste are not unduly 
trying. Then, no doubt, in meat there is decomposition 
always going on, which, when it is eaten by human be- 
ings, may produce fermentation leading to serious dis- 
eases. Of course there are many other arguments against 
meat ; but as long as it is considered a positively neces- 
sary food, there is no good using them. I find that with 
young people it is useless to preach against meat. They 
like it, they see everybody eating it, they are told that 
the Faculty consider it positively necessary, and, owing 
to their youth, they feel no ill -effects, except now and 
then a temporary derangement, which they attribute to 
something they don't like so much. The great thing 
with them is to urge abstemiousness, and even at times 
total abstinence, and, when they feel ill, simple starva- 
tion. The day may come when they will find it best for 
themselves to give up meat. I only wish that I had 
been brought up to rely upon my own reason in dealing 
with illness. Half the ailments that mankind suffers 
from could be cured by nature herself, if she were given 
time and were not forced. She is interfered with in 
every way by both doctor and patient. 

' Power has been usurped by the Faculty. Very few 
men can stand power ; they get to be assertive and dog- 
matic, and eventually become tyrants.' 

So I hear of bad health here, sufferings there, and, 
what we used to say of old people when we were young, 
'cases of fifteen mortal maladies and yet living on to a 
good old age.' They live long because their constitutions 
are good; they suffer much, in my opinion, because they 
eat what is not good for them, both as to quality and 



MARCH 227 

quantity, only adding to their ailments instead of dimin- 
ishing them. The modern invalid always says: 'The 
doctor has ordered me to eat well,' and feels his con- 
science absolved. This reminds me of a rather good old 
story which a doctor told me, when I was a girl in Brus- 
sels, as having happened to himself. A bishop who was 
eating stuffed turkey with this doctor on Good Friday 
excused himself to a punctilious friend, who was shown 
into the dining-room by accident, saying: 'Le docteur 
me le commande, et moi je lui donne absolution.' But 
can one imagine anything more hopelessly exasperating 
for poor doctors, who have to make their living, than to 
find that loss of patients is the result if they venture 
even to ask in chronic cases what people eat and drink ? 
We all know how they knock off food in cases of serious 
illness, though even then I think they still allow far too 
much. During convalescence it is often desirable for 
the patient to eat anything that he can digest. 

I know it will be said that the next generation may 
suffer from the results of a low diet, as the doctors are 
perpetually telling us that we have all suffered from the 
port wine drinking and high living of our ancestors. 
Nothing but time can prove this. 

In my youth, heaps of doctors, especially on the Con- 
tinent, still believed in bleeding, particularly in fever 
cases. Now this is as unknown as if it had never been 
practised at all. Is this right or wrong! 

I see even restaurants now advertise suppers which 
are not indigestible ! An interesting pandering to the 
growing faith that good health comes far before good 
feeding. 

I was asked the other day to give a lecture on the 
right spending of money. Oh ! what a fraud these 
appeals to my knowledge or wisdom make me feel ! I, 
who have so little knowledge of figures that I cannot 



228 MORE POT-POURRI 

even keep my own accounts ! But most certainly, if I 
were to give a lecture, I should say to everyone, high 
and low: 'Spend far less in food and drink.' To the 
under-fed and poor : 'Live twice as well as you do, on 
what you have, by spending judiciously.' To the farm- 
ers : 'Grow more peas and beans for wholesome human 
food.' And to the seedsman : 'Sell these food -pro- 
ducing seeds much cheaper, and put the price on to 
something else.' 

I have said nothing about the cheapness of the diet I 
recommend, as it is not cheap if it does not make you 
well. If it does, it is very satisfactory, I thiuk, to spend 
so very little on food ; and eating so much less at each 
meal is so delightfully comfortable ! I could not have 
believed some years ago that it was possible to keep in 
excellent health on so little. 

In Dr. Haig's little book 'Diet and Food,' he holds 
out a kind of millennium where cooks might cease to 
exist, and he gives a table of food requiring scarcely 
any cooking, and which yet contains what he considers 
a sufficient amount of albumen. This might prove ex- 
tremely useful under exceptional circumstances. 

A reform I should much like to see is that, when a 
doctor leaves a house at the end of an illness, he himself 
should burn his prescriptions ; and that it might be 
made penal for chemists to make them up except by a 
doctor's orders. Doctors frequently give strong remedies 
in severe cases, but they themselves would be the first to 
regret these remedies being taken again and again on 
the smallest provocation by the patient. The insane 
desire to kill pain and to gain relief by narcotics and 
strength by tonics which pervades our modern society, 
from the youngest to the oldest, is, in my opinion, very 
likely to act more deleteriously on the constitution than 
the excesses of past generations. People become aware 



MARCH 229 

of the loss of health, but the mysterious ways in which 
remedies may have injured us are wrapped in as com- 
plete darkness as is the origin of most of the diseases 
from which all classes suffer. 

I wonder if other people have noticed, as I have done 
throughout my life, that the families where medicines 
are least in use are those of doctors themselves. This 
want of faith in drugs on their part was one of the first 
things which, years ago, opened my eyes. 

What strikes me is, how few people are really well ! 
And if they could put side by side the pleasure of eating 
food which is harmless, and the better health and 
strength this would bring, compared with the pleasure 
of eating large dinners and the feeling of the following 
morning thrown into the balance, I believe the bird-in- 
the-hand pleasure would lose most of its attractions. It 
has been a real surprise to me, though apparently doc- 
tors know it well, how vast a number of people would 
much rather be ill, or even die, than be convinced that 
the food they like does them harm. The young, espe- 
cially, seem to think that one of the chief pleasures of 
life would be removed if they did not eat what they pre- 
ferred, quite forgetting that fruit and sugar and many 
other good things are quite harmless — nay, beneficial — 
to the non- meat -eater. What we do daily soon ceases 
to be the penance that abstinence once a week was sup- 
posed to inflict. It may be said that 'starving,' with 
many people, does not make them feel well. All I can 
say is, it is very seldom tried on the right lines; at any 
rate, not for long enough time to give it a chance. 

It is curious how things repeat themselves. Sydney 
Smith says, in one of his letters : 'All gentlemen and 
ladies eat too much. I made a calculation, and found I 
must have consumed some wagon -loads too much in the 
course of my life. Lock up the mouth, and you have 



2 3 o MORE POT-POURRI 

gained the victory. I believe our friend Lady Morley 
has hit upon the right plan in dining modestly at two. 
When we are absorbed in side-dishes, and perplexed 
with variety of wines, she sits amongst us, lightly flirt- 
ing with a potato, in full possession of her faculties and 
at liberty to make the best use of them — a liberty, it 
must be owned, she does not neglect. For how agree- 
able she is ! I like Lady Morley; she is what I call good 
company.'' 

The really difficult part of practising any form of 
diet, especially if you have gained immensely by the 
results, is the irritation it causes to the people who 
surround you. I was told the other day that having 
mentioned in a letter the fact that I had become a vege- 
tarian was more than enough to account for my receiv- 
ing no answer. If any sufferers feel tempted to follow 
my example of a strict diet, I strongly recommend them 
to do all in their power to make it as unobtrusive a 
factor in family life as possible. It will also be found a 
great advantage to those who go out in society to cheat; 
by which I mean, take things on your plate as a 'blind,' 
though you have no intention of eating them. The 
sympathy expressed lest you should kill yourself, and 
the terror lest your influence should prove the death of 
somebody else, make life a martyrdom for a very insuf- 
ficient cause. 

I never realised till this j r ear that there is considerable 
danger in a sudden change of diet, especially in hot 
weather and to those who are most in need of it. One 
is always hearing of cases where abstention from meat 
answers for a few months, and then has to be given up 
because the patient finds himself less well, and attributes 
everything to his change of diet. Dr. Haig fully ex- 
plains the reason for this. He may, of course, be wrong 
in his deductions; if he is right, it should lead to great 



MARCH 231 

changes in diet in this country through the conver- 
sion of the medical profession. 

One of the great advantages of the non- sentimental 
over the sentimental vegetarian is that in case dislike of 
foods occurs, as it very commonly does, and with it a 
decided depression of the nervous system from the drop- 
ping of all stimulants, a slight return to ordinary diet 
for a time may be beneficial. Anything is better than 
producing a nervous irritation against the diet. Pa- 
tients at any rate are then able to realise for themselves 
whether it does them good or not, and are able to 
remember how they benefited at first from the cure, and 
go back to it when they feel inclined. They must also 
remember that much that they suffer from is hereditary, 
and has to be continually fought rather than cured. To 
attribute every ailment to the new diet, when people 
have lived on meat and stimulants all their lives, and 
had constant attacks of illness, is, to say the least of it, 
unreasonable. In the case of vegetarians, Dr. Haig has 
told me that they often come to him insufficiently nour- 
ished. It is specially easy for vegetarians to over- eat 
and yet be under -fed. 

I am the last to deny that many, and especially old 
people, have benefited from a purely meat diet (the 
'Salisbury Cure') when very strictly carried out, though 
I never tried it mj^self. All that I feel, and I feel it 
strongly, is that health is more likely to be bettered by 
only taking food that clearly improves the blood than by 
depending for cure on alterative medicines and tonics 
which only relieve for a time. 

True wisdom always brings us back to the old rule 
that moderation in all things is the best guide for every- 
body. The fact has long been known with regard to 
alcohol ; but it has only lately been acknowledged that 
tea, coffee, and beef or chicken tea, are also stimulants 



232 MORE POT-POURRI 

and not food, and are injurious to the nervous system. 
Who would not have laughed, a few years ago, at the 
statement that tea -drinking in large quantities produces 
a form of delirium tremens f And yet the illness is now 
quite recognised as existing among the under -fed who 
drink tea in excess. The craving for stimulants of some 
kind is universal, especially when nourishment is insuf- 
ficient. This proves, I think, that what is most wished 
for is not always best for us. 

The law, and generally our own inclination, obliges 
us to leave the treatment of disease, once acquired, in 
the hands of doctors and surgeons, and this in spite of 
the many mistakes they make — often grievous mistakes, 
such as cutting people open and then merely sewing 
them up again because nothing is wrong, or leaving 
pieces of lint or even forceps inside after operations. 
Both these cases have come under my knowledge. 
Knowing of these things only depresses one and does no 
good. But the maintaining of health from babyhood 
upwards and the prevention of disease — for these, to my 
mind, all human beings are individually responsible, 
both as regards themselves and their children. The 
more the latest and most conflicting scientific theories 
on the subject are known by everybody the better. 

For all who are interested in the subject of non- 
meat -eating, much general information (cooking and 
other) is to be got from 'The Vegetarian,' a weekly 
penny newspaper. It is, of course, written from the sen- 
timental point of view of the non- killing of animals, 
the health of man being considered as only secondary. 
Everyone with any understanding must have his feel- 
ings aroused by the sufferings of animals, whether 
caused by man or by each other. The killing of ani- 
mals comes under a different category. Anyone who 
keeps cows knows well the sad order that has to go 



MARCH 233 

forth for the slaughter of the beautiful little bull-calf, 
as even the most fortunate farmer cannot expect to 
breed only cows. Is not all or nearly all our compli- 
cated civilised life directly or indirectly mixed up with 
the killing of animals ? No one can hate cruelty more 
than I do ; no one can wish more than I do that legisla- 
tion should be applied to control and rule the cruelty of 
man. But the most tender-hearted of old maids has to 
shut her eyes to the fact that superfluous kittens and 
puppies are put out of the way; and if we are told that 
the rats are devouring our beautiful black and white 
pigeons, the cruel rat-catcher is sent for to fight and 
kill the enemy, though, poor things ! Mr. and Mrs. Rat 
enjoyed their spring life and their young families quite 
as much as the pigeons. Can vegetarians keep their 
kitchens full of blackbeetles or their Roses covered with 
greenfly? Do they give over all their Peaches to the 
wasps, or their nuts to the mice ? 

The wasteful redundancy of nature involves the 
whole question in a cloud of difficulties, and to my mind 
not one of these is removed, nor is any light thrown on 
the subject by the sentimental view that we should give 
up eating meat, not for our own good, but with the idea 
of sparing animal life. 

Besides, such countless other products are dependent 
upon the killing of animals that, even if the whole world 
were non- meat -eating, hardly fewer animals than at 
present would be bred and slaughtered. 

I myself believe it has to be proved that people who 
do not eat meat are less strong than those who do. The 
subject is receiving much attention in Germany. Last 
year I saw in the newspapers that a man left money to 
build a school for poor children, on condition that it was 
conducted on vegetarian principles. The trustees re- 
fused the bequest. On the other hand, last June a very 



234 MORE POT-POURRI 

interesting walking -match took place in Berlin which, 
the papers said, attracted the attention of the Minister 
of War. The course was over seventy English miles. 
There were twenty-two starters, amongst them eight 
vegetarians, and the distance had to be covered within 
eighteen hours. The interesting result was that the first 
six to arrive at the goal were vegetarians, the first fin- 
ishing in fourteen and a quarter hours. The two other 
vegetarians missed their way and walked five miles more. 
All reached the goal in splendid condition. Not till an 
hour after the last vegetarian arrived did the first meat- 
eater appear, and he was then completely exhausted. 
He, moreover, was the only one, the others having 
dropped off after thirty -five miles. This does not look 
as if power of endurance were necessarily diminished by 
non-meat-eating, and a great many people who have 
tried non-stimulating food find, as I do, that their brains 
are immensely clearer, their capacity for work restored 
and increased, they are much less affected by changes of 
temperature, and their general powers of endurance are 
much greater than before. In short, my belief that 
wrong diet, in some form or other, is the cause of all the 
hundred and one complaints which are called by different 
names, and that they do not originate from external 
germs, is as great, and some will say of the same nature, 
as that of Mrs. Crow, the ghost-seer in the old story. 
This lady had unbounded faith that certain acts would 
make her invisible, and so went out into the streets of 
Edinburgh, with nothing on and a prayer book in one 
hand. A policeman rushed at her with his cape. She 
was not disconcerted, but said : ' What, you see me ? 
Then I must have put the book into the wrong hand.' 

I have noticed before the fact of the extraordinary 
economy brought about by reduction in food, wine, etc. ; 
but this is not necessarily an argument in favour of a 



MARCH 235 

simple diet. The money people have must go some- 
where ; and if they like meat and drink better than most 
things, but for the injury to the body it might as well 
go in that way as in any of the other luxuries of life 
which are not essentials. Much as I enjoy providing 
food for others, I now feel that it is anything but a true 
kindness to them. It is difficult to imagine the change 
that would come over civilisation if that most improb- 
able of all miracles were to take place and the majority 
of people became non- meat -eaters. I have a note from 
one of Walter Bagehot's books, which points out the 
evil of reduction in luxury. I am not political econo- 
mist enough to know whether his view is generally ac- 
cepted now ; it is in contradiction to that of other 
teachers. He says : ' We must observe, what is inces- 
santly forgotten, that it is not a Spartan and ascetic 
state of society which most generates saving. On the 
contrary, if a whole society has few wants there is little 
motive for saving. . . . Nothing is commoner than to 
read homilies on luxury. Without the multifarious 
accumulation of wants, which are called luxury, there 
would in such a state of society be far less saving than 
there is. And if it be good for the poor that capital 
should be saved, then the momentary luxury which 
causes that saving is good for the poor.' I spend in 
fruit and on the garden what I should have spent under 
ordinary circumstances in meat and wine, with certainly 
more enjoyment to myself and, perhaps, less waste. 

My nieces, I believe, look upon me as a kind of witch 
— meant no doubt as a subtle compliment — and, now 
that many are married and have babies, they say they 
want my opinion on the important question of how to 
manage them. I am very fond of babies and a great 
admirer even of large families, now so out of fashion. 
In a book lately published, I read the other day of a 



236 MORE POT-POURRI 

bishop at the beginning of this century who wrote to his 
young married daughter : 'Go on, my dear Eliza, and 
never fear hurting your constitution by honest child- 
bearing, since, for one mother that grows thin with this 
work, there are five hundred old maids that grow thin 
for want of it. 7 As a matter of fact, I have seen very 
little of nurseries of late years, but I never travel in 
railway carriages with babies, or look into the village per- 
ambulators, without being shocked by the universal use 
of those terrible modern inventions, sold by every chemist 
throughout the land, called 'baby comforters or soothers.' 
I cannot imagine any child's digestion not being weak- 
ened and injured by them. The suction is exactly the 
same as with the real bottle, and the waste of saliva 
must be excessive ; so great that the flow must be much 
reduced when food is actually taken, and this of itself 
must begin the non- assimilation of food which modern 
children, especially those brought up by hand, suffer 
from so much. My objection applies to babies after 
they are three or four months old ; before that these 
'comforters' do not do much harm. But, the habit once 
acquired, few nurses or mothers have the courage to 
break it. 

Every doctor I have asked has corroborated my view 
on this subject. A thoroughly conscientious doctor 
ought, I think, to refuse to attend the children of the 
rich where such things are used. The mothers and 
nurses say : ' It is such a comfort to the child, and pre- 
vents its crying, which is so dangerous.' This is the 
modern receipt for everything ! Momentary relief and 
palliatives, at the cost of eventual good ! What makes 
babies cry is not only dyspepsia and discomfort, but also 
spoiling ; that is to say, responding to that natural 
appeal of crying for what they want. Many a child 
that has been too much held in nurses' arms from its 



MARCH 237 

birth cries when it is laid down. That does not mean 
that it is bad for the child to lie down, for, if it is quite 
loosely dressed, this does it only good. It cries, as a 
dog whines, merely to express, in the only way that it 
can, what it wants ; and if taken up directly it cries, 
this teaches it, by the only way it can learn, to do it 
again next time. 

I saw some years ago a most intelligently managed 
baby ; it was half German, half French. I was also 
much struck with the superior common -sense of many of 
the arrangements in the foreign nursery that I visited, 
and was told that they were the general custom in that 
part of the world. All babies' cots from the very begin- 
ning are firm, never rocking — which must be better. 
And the little mattress is made of hard, firm horsehair, 
not wool. On the top of this is another mattress, made 
of strong linen, four or five inches thick, loosely filled 
with husks. The pillow is also loosely filled with the 
same material; viz., the husks of oats, well dried and 
cleaned of all dust. The husks can be got from a corn 
or forage merchant, and — to thoroughly clean them — 
they should be washed in water, left to dry for some 
days, then well shaken out in a thin muslin bag, and also 
well aired. The reasons for this kind of pillow are its 
cleanliness, and the fact that it is much cooler and 
wholesomer than either wool, down, or feathers. In 
Germany, children sleep on a husk pillow till they are 
seven or eight years old, and later in cases of illness. 
The coolness of this pillow and mattress is particularly 
essential, because the babies are never held in the arms 
of mother or nurse except when they are being fed. 
This is an important factor in the nursery management, 
especially in houses without many servants, as it makes 
the nurse or mother so much freer to do all that she has 
to do. Small babies are far too much nursed, as a rule, 



238 MORE POT-POURRI 

in England ; a child is trained from the first by the 
monthly nurse to lie constantly on her knee, whereas, 
abroad, the first thing done from the very beginning is 
to train a baby to be perfectly content in its cot. And 
when the weather is fine and it goes out, it is never 
carried or wheeled about before it is seven or eight 
months old. It lies for hours in the open air as in a 
bed. It is very important that children of all ages 
should sleep on a hard, flat bed, and that mattresses 
should be re -made whenever they get hollow. I believe 
that neglect of this is the cause of many round shoulders 
and weak spines. A husk pillow (which can be made of 
dried and pounded bracken Fern if the husks of oats 
are not available) is also used for washing a baby, on a 
method which I think both safer and easier than our 
English way. There is a large, plain deal table, three 
sides of which are surrounded by a rim as in our wooden 
washstands. On the right and left of this table is placed 
everything the nurse is likely to require for washing the 
baby. On a little table next to this big one is a basket 
with the clothes. In the middle of the large table is 
placed the above-mentioned pillow, covered with a piece 
of mackintosh sheeting, over which is laid a large bath 
towel. On this is placed the little naked baby, and it is 
then the superior advantage of this system over the 
English one becomes apparent. No one can see it done 
without appreciating how much less experienced the 
mother or nurse need be, as both hands are left free to 
soap and sponge, and wipe and powder. After being 
soaped, the baby is dipped, as with us, into the bath, and 
immediately laid back again on the pillow, where it looks 
like one of the little Christian 'bambinos' in sugar or 
plaster, which used to be sold in Italy at Christmas time. 
The child is wrapped in the bath towel and dried. 
The mackintosh and towel are then removed, and the 



MARCH 239 

really difficult process of dressing a very young baby is 
safely and easily performed on the pillow. I saw it done 
by a young and inexperienced nurserymaid of nineteen, 
who certainly could never have been trusted to wash a 
baby as we do it in England, and I came away greatly 
impressed with the merits of the chaff pillow. 

A favourite trick practised by those who have charge 
of babies is to cover or nearly cover over their faces, so 
that the child breathes its own breath, which all edu- 
cated people know is poisonous. When you expostulate, 
the nurse says : 'It makes the child sleep better' — which 
means the child is more or less asphyxiated by want of 
air. This excuse could be urged for anything, even for 
giving what, when I was in Canada, I saw advertised 
everywhere as'Sirop calmant de Madaine Winslow.' The 
wretched stuff acquires a new dignity when translated 
into French ! Fresh air, night and day, is the great 
essential for health ; and, pretty as are babies' veils, I 
think the babies are far better without them. All the 
same, I saw a lovely little baby's hood last year, made in 
a close-fitting way, like an old-fashioned baby's cap, 
and over all was thrown a large square of net, hemmed 
and run with three rows of satin baby ribbon. 

The public mind has been a good deal disturbed and 
exercised by the bill, passed in '98, enabling people who 
have 'conscientious objections' to be absolved from hav- 
ing their children vaccinated. I should like to see all 
vaccination voluntary, as it seems to me to be exceed- 
ingly likely that the last scientific word on the subject 
has not been said. But if it is really for the good of 
the community that vaccination should be universally en- 
forced, then the 'conscientious objector' is a danger to the 
whole community, and should not be allowed to have his 
way. Anybody interested in this subject will find, in the 
twenty -fourth volume of the ' Encyclopedia Britannica' 



240 MORE POT-POURRI 

(ninth edition), an exhaustive article on vaccination, 
which, the writer says, is 'the result of an independent 
and laborious research. 7 To me it was interesting and 
most instructive. The public now have such glorious 
chances of learning the truth, instead of living on false 
tradition ; but how few avail themselves of them ! The 
statements at the end of the article about the epidemic 
of smallpox in 1870-71 are most curious, and certainly 
contradict many of the usual medical assertions. 

To return to the babies. Anxious young mothers 
with delicate infants are nowadays very apt to get hos- 
pital nurses to look after them. I am sure that this is a 
mistake, and I have known two or three cases amongst 
my acquaintances where this was tried and answered ex- 
tremely badly. The hospital nurse is apt to be over- 
clever, and try far too many things, such as changing 
the foods unnecessarily, and using medicines much too 
freely. A baby wants ordinary animal care, warmth, 
regularity of treatment, and the people who look after 
it to have the courage that comes with love. It does not 
want remedies which check ailments one day and repro- 
duce them the next day with renewed force. Why does 
it never strike the mother or nurse, who gives a child — 
with absolute courage — a harmful drug, such as fluid 
magnesia, that they could try instead such harmless 
remedies as spoonfuls of orange -juice, or apples or 
prunes rubbed through a sieve ? A doctor told me the 
other day that a child brought up on fluid magnesia was 
bound to suffer from that troublesome, if not danger- 
ous, ailment too well known in most modern nurseries, 
chronic constipation. 

If a child is very delicate, the mother nervous, and 
if no good, experienced children's nurse is to be got, 
then I would recommend a monthly nurse ; though, of 
course, they too are sometimes difficult to get. There is 



MARCH 241 

an institution now started, called the Norland Institute, 
16 Holland Park Terrace, London, W., and the princi- 
pal will send all information if requested. It is for the 
training of ladies as children's nurses on Froebelian 
principles. I do not know much about it myself, but it 
appears to be useful both for employers and employed. 
So many women, though willing enough, are unfit for 
any employment through want of training, and many 
a young woman would be an excellent nurse for young 
children who could never make a good governess or 
school teacher. 

Nursery arrangements are much cleaner now than 
they used to be. A well cared -for baby has its little 
gums wiped out every day with a soft rag, which is 
then burnt. This plan is safer than the soft little bit of 
sponge sold for the purpose, as sponges are difficult to 
keep perfectly clean, even if well washed and dried. 
The following is the receipt for the mixture with which 
this should be done, and which makes the baby smack 
its lips : Mix one teaspoonful of powdered borax with 
two teaspoonfuls of cold water, and add three ounces 
of glycerine. Shake the bottle well, and the mixture 
is ready for use. In the case of a baby that has been 
neglected, and when the mouth has become really bad, 
it should be washed out with warm water several times 
a day after food. 

There is still a strong prejudice in England against 
boiling and sterilising milk ; but, in the face of the 
recent revelations as regards tuberculosis in cows, I 
trust this will become less and less. The German 
patents are to be got at all chemists'. Soxhlet's 
apparatus is one of the best, I believe, but new steri- 
lisers are constantly being brought out ; and, when 
once understood, the process gives no more trouble 
than any other careful preparation of babies' food. 



242 MORE POT-POURRI 

To give children and invalids raw milk does seem a 
most cruel risk. I know many young people who say 
they would rather die than drink boiled milk. If they 
were brought up from babyhood on cooked milk, I am 
sure that this feeling would disappear. I copy the fol- 
lowing extract on this subject of milk- sterilising from 
a lecture (published in the 'Journal of State Medicine,' 
January, 1899) on 'The Administrative Control of 
Tuberculosis,' by Sir Richard Thorne Thorne, Medical 
Officer of the Local Government Board, as it interests 
and concerns far more people than the mere manage- 
ment and health of cows, although this is the chief 
point of Sir Richard's clear and admirable lecture. 
The extract may seem rather long, but I feel compelled 
to copy it, as it may in that way reach homes where 
the more scientific periodical may never have been 
heard of : ' It is a somewhat curious fact that the 
inhabitants of the United Kingdom stand almost alone 
amongst civilised nations in the habitual use of un- 
cooked milk as food. This is the more to be regretted 
because, by reason of this practice, human life, espe- 
cially that of infancy and childhood, is being sacrificed 
on a scale which, to use the mildest term, is altogether 
deplorable. That this should be so is also altogether 
unreasonable in the face of the certain knowledge we 
possess, and which is set forth in the report of the 
Royal Commission of 1890 in the following words : 
"The most deadly tubercular material can be rendered 
absolutely innocuous, in so far as any spreading of 
infective disease is concerned, by the action of a tem- 
perature at which water boils." And again: "It is 
sufficient to state that boiling, for an instant even, 
renders the tubercle bacillus absolutely innocuous." 
Milk exposed to a temperature of 100° C, whether by 
boiling or other form of cooking, will not convey tuber- 



MARCH 243 

culosis ; and milk sterilised, as by placing it over the 
fire in one saucepan, which stands in an outer one 
filled with water, until it has reached a temperature of 
some 80° C. to 90° C, i.e., 176° F., or perhaps even 
less, is an equally innocuous food. And yet, whilst 
we have this knowledge at our disposal, and whilst we 
know, still further, that some 7,000 persons, mostly 
infants, are annually killed in England and Wales by 
that form of tuberculosis called " labis mesenterica," 
besides some thousands more by tubercular meningitis 
— a cause of tuberculous death which is on the increase 
under three months of age, is undergoing no diminu- 
tion at the next three months of life, and which ex- 
hibits substantial increase during young adult life — 
and yet we find people apparently intelligent, including 
even heads of young families, who discard the remedy 
on the mere ground of "taste." And what is still 
more striking and reprehensible is the fact that in 
many of our hospitals, established for the cure of dis- 
ease, no effort is made to avoid the chance of impart- 
ing disease, merely because effort would cause some 
inconvenience. The avoidance of all that is septic in 
connection with surgical operations stands in striking 
contrast with the courting of infection in the wards 
by the use of uncooked milk. But even the taste 
which attaches to boiled milk, and to which infants 
become at once habituated, may be largely avoided if 
the milk boiled after the morning delivery be stored 
in the cool for use in the afternoon, and if the after- 
noon milk be similarly set aside until next morning. 

' But some allege another objection. It is maintained 
that cooked milk is less nutritious than raw milk. I 
admit that there is an element of truth in this. Milk is 
a fluid having a biological character; it is living fluid, 
and this character is destroyed by boiling or sterilisa- 



244 MORE POT-POURRI 

tion. From the purely scientific point of view, it is most 
desirable to bear this in mind, but in its practical aspect 
it is well to remember that the slight diminution in 
nutritive value which cooking brings about in milk 
cannot be named side by side with the immense gain in 
freedom from the risk of infectious disease and death 
which is thus insured. . . .' He ends by saying : 

1 The need for educating the public of this country as 
to the risks involved in the use of raw cows' milk, and 
as to the simple methods by which these risks can be 
effectually avoided, is a pressing one, and it can only be 
met by enlisting the active services of my own profes- 
sion. Our influence in such matters is necessarily con- 
siderable ; our responsibility is correspondingly a heavy 
one.' 

I should like to know the opinion of the Faculty on 
the dangers of butter, cream, and cheese, which I have 
never seen mentioned. Butter, however, is now often 
made from boiled milk. 

Here is a receipt for boiling milk for butter or keep- 
ing : Let the milk stand for twelve hours in an open 
tin, then put it on the stove and let it just bubble round 
the edges. Take it off, let it stand another twelve 
hours, and then make the butter. 

The popular impression is that separated milk is use- 
less as human food. Yet I believe it is now acknowl- 
edged by scientific investigators that the nourishing and 
life-giving properties of milk remain when the cream is 
taken off, the cream containing nothing but the fat. Of 
course, to children and many people fat is desirable, but 
can be obtained in many other ways. 

The newspapers of the last few months have been so 
full of this most interesting question of tuberculosis in 
cows that it seems almost superfluous to allude to it. 
Yet nurseries are so under the power of women who, 



MARCH 245 

however good and devoted, are uneducated, and there- 
fore bigoted in their opinions, that it is as well to 
caution young mothers not to yield to what might 
seem to them the greater experience of the nurse. I did 
it myself, having as my nurse one of the best of women, 
who had brought up several babies. All the same, I 
think now I was wrong; but in my youth the rules of 
health were in the dark ages compared to what they are 
now. To-day every young mother should learn for 
herself what is the last and the most approved theory as 
regards food and fresh air. On one subject science and 
nature go hand in hand, and lead more and more to the 
belief that the only really right nourishment for a baby 
is what nature provides. In the 'upper classes' it has 
become in my life -time rarer and rarer for young 
mothers to nurse their own children. When I was 
young the only women who were supposed to be good 
wet-nurses were the Irish; and why was this ? Because 
they were poorly fed; they came, too, of generations of 
poor feeders, and before the days when they could obtain 
either meat or tea except in very small quantities. In 
France and Germany the wet-nurses always came from 
the poor districts, where, as a rule, meat -eating was 
unknown; and of late years these women are more and 
more difficult to procure, though this may, of course, be 
from many reasons other than nature failing to supply 
what is required. I believe that if young mothers were 
greatly to reduce their ordinary food during the time 
before the birth of their children, they would not only 
greatly reduce the common suffering which nature has 
had to resort to, so as to lessen the food taken, but the 
chances of the baby's health after its birth would be 
infinitely greater. A large, heavy baby often loses 
weight after its birth, especially when the mother cannot 
give it natural nourishment. This should not be ; they 



246 MORE POT-POURRI 

should increase in weight during the first month. I 
was always under the impression when young that a 
delicate mother, and especially one threatened with con- 
sumption, ought on no account to nurse her child. In 
the lecture from which I quoted before, Sir Richard 
Thorne Thorne says that ' there is no sterilising appa- 
ratus that can give results comparable with those 
provided by nature in the healthy female breast, and 
that tuberculosis in the human milk glands is a disease 
so rare that it hardly needs consideration in connection 
with the feeding of infants. At the child-bearing age 
it is all but unknown.' I extract this because I think 
it will help many a young mother to fight the opposition 
of perhaps both her husband and the doctor, who may 
be thinking, as is natural, more of what they consider 
good for her than for the child. 

I heard yesterday, in our village, an excellent lecture 
by a young mother on what she called the ' New Educa- 
tion.' I agreed with every word, and had myself tried 
to carry it out many years ago. It is sad that what she 
propounded has made so little way these five- and - 
twenty or thirty years. Her recommendations were 
much on the lines of a book first published in 1868, 
called 'Essays on Educational Reformers,' by Robert 
Herbert Quick. I only did not mention this book 
before, much as it interested me years ago, and much as 
I admire it still, because I thought it was out of print 
and not to be got. Now it is republished by Longmans, 
Green & Co., in a cheap edition (25. 3d.) and arranged 
on a clearer plan. Get it, you young mothers, and read 
it. It is the most comprehensive and illuminating book 
that I have ever seen on the all -important subject. It is 
far better known in America than in England. The 
chapter on Pestalozzi is perhaps especially excellent. 
Nature should be helped by art, and art should come to 



MARCH 247 

the assistance of nature. After showing how children 
can only learn in their own way, he ends with, 'Of 
course I do not mean there is no education for children, 
however young ; but the school is the mother's knee, 
and the lessons learnt there are other and more valuable 
than object lessons.' He goes on to say : ' The mother 
is qualified, and qualified by the Creator himself, to 
become the principal agent in the development of her 
child . . . and what is demanded of her is a 
thinking love . . .' Is it not almost fearful how 
many children grow up without &ny thinking love at all ? 
Is there anything more pathetic in three lines than 
these — by Blake — or more terribly true ? Think of all 
the half-castes all over the world, not to mention our 
own cities ! 

The Angel that presided o'er my birth 

Said, ' Little creature, formed of joy and mirth, 

Go, live without the help of anything on earth.' 

It is the non- understanding of children makes the 
difficulty. The following poem by Mrs. Deamer will give 
a stab, I think, to many a young mother. Maternal love 
often wants cultivating, and does not come naturally to 
many young women ; of this I am sure. And, though 
they learn many things, they seem to think being a good 
mother comes by instinct or not at all. This is not true. 
Besides, the apparently devoted mother may want quite 
as much training and self-cultivation as the indifferent 
one ; perhaps more so, as she takes more responsibility 
on herself, and so, possibly, deprives the child of being 
looked after by someone else. 

I think the world is really sad, — 

I can do nothing but annoy ; 
For little boys are all born bad, 

And I am born a little boy. 



248 MORE POT-POURRI 

tr 

It doesn't matter what the game, 

Whether it's Indians, trains, or ball; 
I always know I am to blame, 
If I amuse myself at all. 

I said one day, on mother's knee: 
' If you would send us right away 
To foreign lands across the sea, 
You wouldn't see us every day. 

'We shouldn't worry any more 

In those strange lands with queer new toys; 

But here we stamp, and play, and war, 
And wear your life out with our noise. 

' The savages would never mind, 

And you'd be glad to have us go 
There ; nobody would be unkind, 
For you dislike your children so,' 

Then mother turned and looked quite red, 
I do not think she could have heard ; 

She put me off her knee instead 
Of answering me a single word. 

She went, and did not even nod. 

What had I said that could annoy ¥ 
Mothers are really very odd 

If you are born a little boy. 

I could go on quoting for ever from Mr. Quick's 
book, but why should I, when it is within reach of all ? 
His last sentence is : ' The duty of each generation is 
to gather up the inheritance from the past, and then 
to serve the present and prepare better things for the 
future. 7 How can there be a better motto for young 
or old? 

The kindergarten system, when well carried out, 
seems to be the best method of teaching children 
under seven, and a kindergarten child has more 
thoughtful independence than other children. I once 



MARCH 



249 



tried to make a boy of five clean his teeth, but he was 
rebellious that night, and, in an unguarded moment, I 
said he must. So after standing some time beside him, 
I said : ' I do not know how long you mean to keep me 
here, but I can't give in now I have said you must.' 
The child answered quite calmly : 'Well, it is odd, 
mother, you should say that, as it is exactly what I 
feel.' And then we came in some way to an amiable 
compromise which hurt no one's dignity. It is so 
idiotic, in the management of children, to give direct 
orders which they do not understand, and which ap- 
pear to them as unreasonable tyranny. A mother had 
better command by example, not by authority. Sub- 
jection and blind obedience are all wrong, and result 
from quite a mistaken idea of the evolution of the 
universe. 'Every human being has a claim to a judi- 
cious development of his faculties by those to whom 
the care of his infancy is confided.' 

Teeth cleaning of children used to be thought rather 
an unnecessary tyranny. It has assumed different pro- 
portions now, and it ought to be seen to in all schools. 
A great many people will be surprised to learn that often 
would-be recruits are rejected on the ground of bad 
teeth. It is no better with officers, and cases are 
common in which candidates, after an expensive prep- 
aration, have failed to pass their 'medical' on account 
of deficient dentures. In an examination of 10,000 of 
British children, of an average age of twelve years, 
eighty -five per cent required operative treatment. One 
more example that the ordinary food of the present day 
is not conducive to the health of the human race. 
Improvement in teeth and gums is one of the most 
marked and satisfactory symptoms experienced by peo- 
ple who take to the health -giving food recommended by 
Dr. Haig. 



25o MORE POT-POURRI 

I find, among my old letters, this anecdote of a young 
mother trying to give religious instruction to a delicate 

little girl of two and a half : ' M is a sweetly good, 

dear child and in better spirits than usual, which is a 
good sign. I was trying the other day to convey some 
notion of a Creator to her mind. She started with 
pure atheism — that nobody made the trees, etc. Having 
made her understand her clothes must be made, and 
dinner prepared by somebody, she seemed to accept the 
notion of "God" with a long-drawn "Oh ! " And when 
I said he was a long way off, in the beautiful sky, she 
said quickly : ' ' What a bore \" I asked : ' ' Why ? ' ' 
She answered: "Me like to see God, mamma." In 
short, she caught up some notion of a good fellow who 
made everything that was good and beautiful, and has 
told me ever since : " Dod made the trees, the sun and 
the moon, and all the pitty things." So I flatter myself 
she is on the fair road to deism. Christianity must 
dawn upon her mind by very slow degrees, poor little 
infant ! But she is so loving and gentle she is no bad 
exemplification of "Of such is the kingdom of Heaven," 
and I am very dotingly fond of her.' I think if this 
fond mother had given the love without attempting the 
instruction, merely teaching the child to admire and 
notice and love, she would have been more sensibly 
employed in fitting it for its future life than in trying 
to explain and expound deism or Christianity at so early 
an age. 

I knew, years ago, two conscientious young parents, 
both equally religious, who stayed away themselves from 
going to church, which they loved, in order, as they said, 
to break the temper of their little daughter, aged two 
and a half. As I said before, temper, which is inborn 
and hereditary, should never be fought, but always 
treated with love, gentleness, and tenderness, as an ill- 



MARCH 251 

ness. Temper cannot be conquered, except from within. 
To help the child to help itself, that is the only method. 
I do not really believe that punishment ever does any 
good to old or young, though self -mortification helps 
many natures. Prisons rank with mad -houses ; they 
exist to protect the public, not to benefit the individuals 
who suffer punishment. The only way with children is 
gradually to get them to see what most helps themselves. 
I admit that to understand the way children's minds 
work is a humiliatingly difficult task, and one cannot be 
too careful not to shock their feelings by either laughing 
at them or letting them see any contempt for their most 
natural ignorance. There is a well-known story of a 
little girl who, having been naughty, was told to ask 
forgiveness of the Almighty in her evening prayers. 
The next morning, when questioned as to whether she 
had done so, she quietly answered : 'Oh yes, but Dod 

said : " Don't mention it, Miss B " ' ! 

In a letter on some remarks about children in my 
first book, a most kind and able woman wrote to me as 
follows : ' The only point on which I do not quite agree 
with you is where you say you cannot judge of a child's 
character before twelve. When I look back to my early 
childhood, I can see how exactly I and my brothers and 
sisters were as little children what we are to-day. What 
I do think is that, from about twelve to twenty -two or 
three, or even twenty -eight, a certain deflection takes 
place ; but as one fully develops, one returns to what 
one was as a little child. I know that I am to-day far 
more like what I was at seven years old than what I was 
at sixteen. The child is father to the man, not to the 
youth. Of course you must be keen enough to read the 
child's character. Children are such mysterious things 
that few grownup people, even those who are keen read- 
ers of adult character, can understand them.' 



252 MORE POT-POURRI 

So far as I understand what is called 'the new 
education,' it does not mean knowledge teaching at all, 
but the developing and fostering the good qualities that 
are born in a child, and so keeping under the evil pro- 
pensities which are equally born in it. In fact, to make 
grow and develop what is actually there in the best way 
you can ; not try to cram in, as into an empty sack, 
what you think ought to be there. 

Some years ago the 'Pall Mall Gazette ' used, from 
time to time, to contain charming original articles on 
various subjects. Among my cuttings I find the follow- 
ing, so true to child life that I think it will rejoice every- 
one who cares to understand children. This study is 
really only just beginning to be approached, as it should 
be, with the humility that belongs to great ignorance 
and non- understanding : 

' It has often been remarked that one half of the 
world does not know how the other half lives, but it is 
curious enough that this should be the fact about a half 
of the world who share our homes, who occupy our 
thoughts, and who possess our hearts, perhaps, more 
entirely than do any other earthly objects. 

' The world in which our children really move and 
live is as remote and unvisited by us as the animal 
kingdom itself, and it is only now and then that a 
chance glimpse into the working of their minds makes 
us realise the gulf that separates us. They can come to 
us, but we cannot go to them ; nor are they, indeed, 
without that touch of contempt for us and our affairs 
which might naturally be considered the exclusive privi- 
lege of the elder and stronger beings. "Don't disturb 
poor father; he is reading his papers," is a sort of 
counterpart to "Oh, let them play; they are doing no 
harm." When we cast a reminiscent glance over our 
own childhood we realise how solitary were its hopes and 



MARCH 253 

its occupations, shared at most by one of our own age — 
a sister, a brother, or a friend. The elders appear from 
time to time as the di ex machind of our existence, for 
redress or for deliverance. We remember them as 
teachers, as purveyors of pleasure, often as separators 
of companions and terminators of delights, but rarely as 
sharers in our most exquisite amusements. " What will 
mother say?" had about it a half -gleeful anticipation of 
disapproval, seldom destined to be unfulfilled ; and that 
not because of any severity on the part of the parent, 
but from a radical want of sympathy with the first prin- 
ciples of enjoyment. Wet, dirt, fatigue, a very little 
danger, late hours — all were in themselves positive 
pleasures, and with some this flavour lingers till far on 
in life ; but, as a rule, you cannot depend upon a grown- 
up person not really preferring to be warm and dull and 
dry, to any discomforts you can offer him. 

' Then what a strange twilight reigns in children's 
minds ! What dim mysterious associations of words 
and phrases lost to us through the garish light of gram- 
mar, or of a clear and positive orthography ! Now and 
then across the years comes a memory of difficulties 
never guessed at by anyone but ourselves. How sur- 
prising it was to hear of people with broken arms or 
legs, which members nevertheless were not visibly sev- 
ered from their persons nor lying on the floor, as in the 
more rational world of dolldom ! And what mysterious 
and terrible fate did "being killed on the spot " signify? 
What spot, or, rather, which spot? for we invariably 
referred it to some bodily blemish of our own. 

'Holy Writ, of course, offered countless problems to 
the imagination, and so did the services of the church. 
The collects were fraught with a meaning their authors 
never dreamed of. "The ills which the devil Orman 
worketh against us" referred, we knew well enough, to 



254 MORE POT-POURRI 

the deadly practices of some bottled Jinn or Efreet ; 
and one companion has since confessed that the Pontius 
Pilate alluded to by the congregation every Sunday was 
for him the Bonchurch pilot, strayed into strange com- 
pany, no doubt, but one with whom he had established 
friendly relations during the week. " Keep thy servant 
from consumptions sins," we said devoutly, for doubt- 
less a consumptious sin was connected remotely with the 
storeroom. 

'What confusion must have reigned in the mind of 
the white -robed infant we once heard murmuring at his 
mother's knee the following invocation : 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright, 

Through the darkness be thou near me ! 

And how fortunate that prayer is not always directly 
answered ! The words our children use are generally 
direct and picturesque, coined with a view to their 
expressive value. We know few terms more felicitous 
than "a sash -pain," by which a child (the sex is 
evident) was in the habit of alluding to one of the ills to 
which flesh is heir. A "rocking-bed" is a better name 
than a hammock, and a "worm -pool" is evidently the 
Early Saxon rendering of a whirl -pool, or why should 
you be in danger of being sucked down by it ? A " poor 
wheeler" delicately suggests the moral inferiority of 
square cabs to hansoms. What can be better than a 
child's definition of drawing: "First you think about 
something, and then you draw a line round your 
think"? 

' Sometimes their utterances betray character, as of the 
little boy who, when the tiger's growls behind the sofa 
had become too realistic for human endurance, burst 
forth with "Mother! mother! don't growl so loud; 
it frightens granny"; or the self-conscious infant who 



MARCH 255 

rushed to leave the lion -house at the Zoo because, he 
said, "the lion is peeping at baby" — as if that wide-eyed 
majesty were conscious of anything nearer than some 
Libyan desert visible to his mental gaze. Often they are 
questions to confound the wise. "Mother, does anyone 
have to-morrow before us ? and will they use to-day when 
we've done with it?" has a flavour of oriental wisdom 
about it difficult to meet. Most grandparents can supply 
you with genuine expressions and utterances drawn from 
nursery life, and they are willing to do so on the smallest 
encouragement ; it is in them that children find their 
most intelligent sympathisers. We noticed two of the 
most distinguished men of the present day in deep and 
confidential discourse at a state entertainment in Lon- 
don the other season. To the superficial observer they 
appeared to be settling the affairs of the nation, but in 
reality they were capping stories about their respective 
youngest grandchildren, and their confidences lasted 
long and late. 

' It seems strange that with an inexhaustible field of 
observation open to everyone, the children of fiction 
should not be more lifelike and less sentimental than is 
usually the case ; but the subject is one that might be 
indefinitely pursued. 

' Memory, it is true, is apt to play us false when we 
try to reenter the realms of our youth 1 ; but few of us 
seem ever to have listened at the nursery door, or to have 
looked through the eyes of childhood into the make- 
believe world it inhabits.' 

I knew a little boy once who used to go out into 
Hyde Park when the soldiers were exercising, and on 
his return give long and detailed accounts of the real 
battles he had seen. His elder and less imaginative 
brother would stand by in silent amazement at what 
seemed to him absolute untruths. The child, in away, 



256 MORE POT-POURRI 

knew he had not seen what he described, and yet, as he 
had seen with the eye of imagination, it was real and 
true to him. 

Here is a little child's song, the words by E. Nesbit, 
set to music by Liza Lehmann. I think it charming, 
and so illustrative of the kind of imagination children 
have, knowing quite well that what they think is not the 
actual fact, though true to them: 

When my good-nights and pray'rs are said 

And I am safe tucked up in bed, 

I know my Guardian Angel stands 

And holds my soul between his hands. 

I cannot see his wings of light 

Because I keep my eyes shut tight, 

For if I open them I know 

My pretty angel has to go. 

But through the darkness I can hear 

His white wings rustling very near. 

I know it is his darling wings, 

Not mother folding up my things. 

I never refuse to name anything I like when I am 
told 'Everyone knows that,' for 'everyone' is a very 
limited London circle, where bright, pretty things come 
like beautiful bubbles, are seen by what is called 'every- 
body,' and are gone in a moment. I think of my kind 
unknown friends who are far away bearing the white 
woman's burden, and who have written to me saying 
they enjoyed the little breath of home my last book 
brought them. They may not have seen or heard what 
I have, and even here in Surrey I find that often the 
thing that 'everyone knows' does not even reach the next 
parish. 

March 3rd. — This is the first year I have forced 
Spircea confusa, and it makes a lovely pot -plant. We 
left it out in the cold till the middle of January. In 



MARCH 257 

forcing all hardy things, that is the great secret, — send 
them to sleep as early as you can by taking them up and 
exposing them to cold. All plants must have their rest; 
they are not like Baron Humboldt and his night of two 
hours. The leaves of this Spiraea are a blue -gray, and 
the branches are wreathed with miniature 'May blos- 
soms.' Alas ! they do not do well picked and in water. 

I am sure, for anyone who wants to force coloured 
Hyacinths, only the very best bulbs are worth while, 
especially when single flowers are preferred, as in my 
case. They are so sweet in the house that I think they 
are worth the trouble of growing and the expense of 
buying annually. I got last autumn a larger and later 
flowering kind of white Hyacinth from Van Tubergen, 
called ' Italian Hyacinths/ single ones and quite cheap. 
They have come on splendidly. They are something like 
the early Roman ones, only far larger and stronger. They 
flower much later and are of an accentuated white, well 
worth growing, and I think they will do out of doors 
next year or the year after. Two newly bought Staphylea 
colchica are looking lovely now in the greenhouse, and 
also a bought plant of white Lilac is covered with 
bloom. We must cut them all back hard after flower- 
ing, plant them out, and give them a year's rest ; then I 
hope they will do again. Libonia floribunda is also a 
very pretty little greenhouse plant at this time of year. 
This is the time to pot up some rested plants of Sweet 
Verbena, and put them into the warmest house to 
start their growth. They soon come into leaf, and are 
then best in the ordinary cool house. This gives plenty 
of Verbena for early picking. 

March 8th. — The lion -like character of the weather 
is softening, and all the little spring things begin to 
come through. Each day makes a difference, but the 
delightful feeling of new life is already everywhere. 



258 MORE POT-POURRI 

Our reason tells us this is because nature has been 
asleep, not dead. There is no mistake about the poor 
really dead plants; we know them too well. Early 
spring here is not beautiful at all ; it is dry and 
shrivelled and hard -looking, not like the neighbourhood 
of my old home by the Hertfordshire millstream. 

The white Alyssum, the common Pulmonaria, and 
the Wallflowers are all coming into flower. I feel more 
and more sure that mixed borders ought not to be dug 
up in autumn, as gardeners — especially gardeners new 
to a place — are so fond of doing ; in that way half tile 
best things get lost. The best way is to replant, or 
dig out large pieces and divide each plant if it wants 
it after flowering and before they quite die down. The 
white Alyssum and the Pulmonarias both do better 
under the slight protection of shrubs than quite in the 
open border, where the cold winds catch them. 

My two large old Camellias planted out last autumn, 
well under a Holly, and facing north, are doing well, 
and one has three bright rosy red blooms. It remains 
to be seen how they will do next year. It is a pleasure 
to think Camellias do better in London gardens than 
almost any other evergreens, and only want well plant- 
ing in peat and leaf -mould, and well syringing and 
watering in the spring. But there also they must have 
the protection of other shrubs, to hang over their tops 
and keep off the spring frosts. 

A semi -double Azalea for the greenhouse, called 
Deutsche Perle, was given me the other day, and is a 
charming greenhouse plant. The flower has something 
of the appearance of a Gardenia, but it has no scent. 

I have had two real good days' gardening, and have 
tried to carry out some of Miss Jekyll's hints, even in 
this commonplace, every -day garden. I have pulled 
down some of the climbing Roses, to let them make low- 



MARCH 259 

growing bushes ; for it is so true that, as she says, 
when planted on a pergola all their beauty is only for 
the bird as it flies. In the lanes, too, I saw some of the 
wild Arum leaves, and got out of the carriage to get 
some. Having no garden -gloves or knife with me, I 
ran my finger down into the soft, leafy mould to gather 
them with the white stalk underground. I trust these 
will rejoice an invalid friend in London to-morrow. 
One gets almost tired of the mass of flowers in London 
now, and things that smell of ditches and hedgerows are 
what one values most. 

March 9th. — Oclontoglossum Rossii major is a charm- 
ing little Orchid to hang up in a shallow pan in a 
greenhouse when in flower. I am getting to like Orchids 
more and more now that, instead of thinking of them in 
their hot glass palaces, the easy -growing ones are 
treated here like other greenhouse plants. They give 
me great pleasure ; the flowers are beautiful and 
interesting to look into and examine. I must learn 
more about them. In all things concerning nature, it is 
only ignorance that makes us take likes and dislikes. 

This is the first spring morning. How one appre- 
ciates the slightest rise in the temperature ! I quite 
pity those who have rushed south, and who cannot 
watch the slow development of our English spring, with 
all its many disappointments. 

The bright yellow flowers of the improved Tussilago 
Coltsfoot, sold by Cannel, are now just coming out, and 
the gravely corner where they grow is a bright mass of 
buds. These flowers that come before their leaves, like 
the autumn crocus, are attractive, though the size of 
their leaves, when they do come, puts one sometimes out 
of conceit with them, especially if crowded for room ; 
though it is astonishing how corners can be found in 
even small gardens for all sorts of things, if one gives 



2 6o MORE POT-POURRI 

the matter constant attention. Having everything under 
one's eye, one never forgets to notice how they get on ; 
the greatest danger for the beds and shrubberies is the 
forking-over in autumn. It is far better left alone, if 
it cannot be done with care and knowledge. 

My little plant of the Daphne blagayana is now in 
flower, but none of the Daphnes do well here for long ; 
even the mezereum goes off after a year or two, and 
D. cneorum wants constant attention. D. blagayana has 
to be grown like D. cneorum, pegged down in peat, and 
with some low-growing plant to shade it. All Daphnes 
are well worth the care they need, but it is a hard 
struggle. I think the spring air is too dry for them. 

The best gardeners tell me we ought to be able to get 
Irises during eight or nine months of the 3 r ear, and that 
this is done by keeping back Japanese Irises with their 
toes in the water till October. I confess I have never 
seen any Kcempferi in bloom after the end of July in 
this part of the world. 

I have lately been given this most useful list for the 
blooming time of Irises : February and March, Iris 
stylosa (blue and white varieties), I. reticulata, I. 
unguicularis alba, I. persica, I. histrloides ; March and 
April, I. pumila atropurpurea, I. pumila cmrulea, I. 
backeriana, I. tuber osa, I. orchioides, I. assyriaca ; 
May, florentina ; May and June, German and Spanish 
and I. sibirica ; July and August, English and 
Japanese. 

I have had the ground prepared, and to-day I am 
sowing the Shirley and other Poppies and Sweet Peas. 
Early sowing of early summer annuals is most essential 
here. I see Miss Jekyll holds much to autumn sowing. 
I have tried it, and failed in some cases, but that is 
because I have done it too late in the autumn. Early 
sowing is the only plan of spring sowing that is at all 



MARCH 261 

successful here. This particular first week in March, 
1899, is perfection for all gardening work. I never saw 
the ground in such a good state — pulverised by night 
frosts, without being too dry and dusty. The garden- 
ing papers say there has not been such a sunny 
February for thirty years. 

The paper of instructions sent out by the secretary of 
the Royal Horticultural Society with the seed of the 
Shirley Poppy is so excellent, and such a help for many 
annuals, that I cannot do better than copy it. One of 
the reasons people fail with hardy annuals is, as I said 
before, from not sowing them early enough : 

' 1. On as early a day as possible in February choose 
a plot of ground sixteen to eighteen feet square or there- 
abouts, give it a liberal dressing of rich dung, and dig 
it in well, and leave it to settle. 

' 2. For sowing, choose the first fine, open day in 
March, free from actual frost, when the ground works 
easily, and rake the surface over. 

' 3. Mix the seed with five or six times its own bulk 
of dry sand, so as to make it easier to sow it thinly. 

4 4. Scatter the mixture thinly, broadcast, over the 
raked surface, and rake it again lightly. 

' 5. When the seedlings are large enough to handle, 
if there should be any bare patches in the bed, move 
with the tip of a trowel a few tiny clumps from where 
they stand thickest. 

' 6. As soon as the bed shows regularly green, stretch 
two lines across it parallel to each other, at eight inches 
apart and, with a Dutch hoe, hoe up all between the 
lines, sparing those plants only that are close to each 
line. Move the lines and so hoe all the bed, which will 
then consist of a number of thin lines of seedlings eight 
inches apart, and the hoed -up ones lying between. 

4 7. About a week later stretch the lines again eight 



262 MORE POT-POURRI 

inches apart, at right angles to the previous lines, and 
hoe again. This, when finished, will leave a number of 
tiny square patches of seedlings eight inches apart 
each way. 

'8. A week later thin out the little patches by hand, 
leaving only one plant in each. Now every plant will 
have eight inches square to grow in. 

' 9. Directly the plant shows the first sign of running 
up to blossom, put a thin line of two -feet -high pea- 
sticks between every two, or at most every three, lines 
of the plants to strengthen them to resist the wind and 
rain. They will soon grow above and hide the sticks. 

'10. In dry weather thoroughly soak the bed once a 
week. A little sprinkle overhead is no use. 

' If. B. — Be sure the operation described in No. 6 is 
done early enough ; otherwise the plants will have 
become "leggy" before your thinning is complete, and 
when once Poppies become "leggy," they are prac- 
tically ruined.' 

March 14th. — My garden is now full of the old wild 
Sweet Violet (Viola odorata) of our youth — before even 
the 'Czars' came in, much less the giant new kinds. I 
have an immense affection for this Violet, with its 
beautiful, intense colour and its delicate perfume. It 
grew all about the Hertfordshire garden under the 
hedges, and little seedlings started up in the gravel 
paths, looking bold and defiant ; but, all the same, they 
were rooted out by the gardener when summer tidying 
began. At the end of March or early in April, when 
the rain comes, I divide up and plant little bits of these 
Violets everywhere, and they grow and flourish and 
increase under Gooseberry bushes and Currant bushes, 
along the palings covered with Blackberries, under 
shrubs — anywhere, in fact — and there they remain, 
hidden and shaded and undisturbed all the summer. 



MARCH 263 

Where seedlings appear, they are let alone all the sum- 
mer and autumn till after flowering time in spring. 
They look lovely and brave these cold, dry, March 
days ; but their stalks are rather short here, for want of 
moisture. If anyone wants to see this Violet to perfec- 
tion, let him chance to be in Rome early in March, as I 
once was, and let him go to the old English cemetery, 
where Keats lies buried, and the heart of Shelley, and 
he will see a never-to-be-forgotten sight — the whole 
ground blue with the Violets, tall and strong above 
their leaves, the air one sweet perfume, and the sound 
(soft and yet distinct) of the murmur of spring bees. 

Just at this time we rake off the winter mulching 
that has covered the Asparagus beds, water them well 
with liquid manure, and salt them when the rain comes. 
March 16th. — As the seasons come round, the 
changes often recall to my mind certain verses in 
' Bethia Hardacre's' volume. Such tender, loving ver- 
sions of some of nature's facts are there, and I go out 
to verify them. The garden now is one mass of 
Crocuses, Violets, fading Snowdrops and bursting 
Daffies ; and this is how the flower- chain is described 
by her : 

Blossoms, meet to mourn the dead, 

On each season's grave are spread : 

Lilies white and Roses red 

O'er dead Spring are canopied ; 

Roses, in their latest bloom, 

Blazen golden Summer's tomb; 

Stealthy showers of petals fall 

At still Autumn's funeral; 

But the darlings of the year 

Strew rude Winter's sepulchre. 

Scarce a flower does Winter own ; 
Of four seasons he alone 
Scarce a bud does to him take — 
Barren for the future's sake, 



264 MORE POT-POURRI 

Well content to none possess ; 
And Sweet Violets — faithfulness — 
And White Snowdrops — innocence — 
Are in death his recompense ; 
And these darlings of the year 
Strew rude Winter's sepulchre. 

March 20th. — Of all the many catalogues I receive, 
none, I think, are produced with anything like the 
attractive intelligence of the one sent out by Messrs. 
Ware, of Tottenham. This year one is tempted to say, 
from the pretty European -Japanese drawing on the 
cover, that nature made a mistake in not giving us 
sometimes an all-over pink sky instead of a blue ! The 
soil at Tottenham is very heavy, and plants that flourish 
admirably there, from my experience, unfortunately 
decline altogether to grow when removed to a purer air 
and a lighter soil. I am sure that all amateurs who are 
interested in the rarer varieties of hardy and half-hardy 
plants had far better try and raise them themselves from 
seed. But a visit to Messrs. Ware's garden, near 
London, as well as constantly going to Kew, will show 
amateurs what can be done. The old-fashioned idea 
that a garden meant a place of quiet and repose is not 
the proper "mental attitude for suburban plant -culti- 
vators. The drawings in the catalogue are excellent, 
though they perhaps rather represent the cultivator's 
expectations than the truth. Still, it is well to have 
high ideals, even in annuals and biennials. To return 
to my catalogue — no one can give time and study to it 
without being the wiser. 

In spite of all my resolutions to stay at home, I have 
a very great longing to go once more to the ' Riviera, ' 
and see some of the really good gardens which have 
grown up since my time, especially that of 'La Mortola, 
Italy,' belonging to Commendatore Hanbury. Last 



MARCH 265 

year, with his help and permission, a little book came 
out which was a great success, and quickly ran out of 
print ; it was called ' Riviera Nature Notes.' A book of 
great interest to us who are only English gardeners, 
what would it be to those who are his neighbours on 
those sunny slopes ? The first line in the book is : 
' J'observe et je suis la nature ; c'est mon secret pour 
etre heureux ' (Florian). 

Can we hear this truth too often in prose and poetry 
and in all art ? I have always thought one of the most 
beautiful of Burne -Jones' early pictures is the one 
which represents the wild god — Pan — lovingly receiv- 
ing poor little Psyche, thrown up by the river that 
refused to drown her. And does it not mean that nature 
from all time has been the best comforter for one of the 
greatest of human sorrows, unrequited love ? 

These ' Riviera Notes ' are full of desultory but most 
interesting information. How delightful to read them 
in a dry Olive yard or under an umbrella Pine, with the 
blue sea behind the tree's rich stem ! Or, when too 
warm to walk so far, to sit below the Orange trees, 
whose tops above one's head are masses of golden fruit 
and sweet -smelling flowers ! At the end of the book are 
chapters on birds, insects, and the 'Riviera' traces of that 
individual — apparently so much alike in all countries — 
prehistoric man. Were they happy, those dim mysteri- 
ous multitudes of the Old Stone and New Stone ages ? 
This little book must have delighted many, as it 
delighted me ; and it is not too difficult for anyone as 
ignorant as I am to understand. As it bears on my 
favourite topic, I must quote from this book the fact that 
'polenta,' or Indian corn porridge, is the chief food of 
the Piedmontese, and I observe it is also stated that they 
do the hard manual labour at 'La Mortola.' They work 
all about the country as navvies, porters, and so forth, 



266 MORE POT-POURRI 

which proves that, at any rate, this food does not make 
them unmuscular. They are powerfully made men, and 
the Ni^ois are ludicrously afraid of them, for they con- 
sider them capable of any act of violence. It is also 
said that these Piedmontese suffer from a disease called 
the 'pellagra,' caused by living on this polenta, 'one of 
the least nourishing of the farinaceous foods.' May it 
not be the food mixed with some form of alcohol ? It 
appears as if some disease belonged to every kind of food 
eaten without variety and in large quantities. 

Mr. Barr gave me, two years ago, some small bulbs 
of Crocus tommasinianus. I thought at first they were 
going to do nothing ; but this year they have flowered 
beautifully, and are of a very delicate pale lavender 
colour. He says they will come up every year, and I 
think they are really far prettier than the large, strong, 
cultivated Crocuses. I have often been asked, What 
should be put into Rose beds to enliven their dull 
branchiness for early spring ? Strong clumps of winter 
Aconites planted very deep, to be succeeded, when the 
Aconites are only bright green tufts of leaves, by large, 
pale Crocuses, white and light lavender, are as good a 
combination as I know; and when they die down a fresh 
top-dressing can be lightly forked into the Roses with- 
out hurting the bulbs. 

A correspondent noticed that I did not mention 
Anemone Pulsatilla. It is quite true I have not got it. 
In my ignorant days I bought it once or twice, and it 
quickly died ; and I have not yet tried to grow it from 
seed, but shall do so this year. This correspondent 
writes from Gloucestershire, where he says it grows wild, 
and that, when well grown, ' it is the most beautiful 
native plant we have.' His letter is dated March 9th, 
and he adds: 'I have one now in a twelve -inch pan, 
taken up about three weeks ago, which has about 150 



MARCH 267 

flowers and buds on it. Like Lilies -of -the -Valley, it 
grows in the poorest and dry est lime soil. But it likes 
good feeding. I think that description sounds as if it 
were worth trouble to produce. Of course he meant, 
when he took it up, that he grew it under glass. 

Two years ago I bought a plant of Rolbcellia lati- 
folia, and planted it in the ground in my cool green- 
house, where it is doing quite beautifully, and is now 
covered with buds. It is a delightful plant for a cool 
greenhouse creeper, as the fragrance of its white flowers 
is delicious, almost exactly like Orange flower ; and it is 
so nearly hardy it will do out of doors against a wall in 
many parts of England. I shall try it here when I have 
struck some cuttings. It is often called, erroneously, 
Stauntonia latifolia. 

I have just brought into the conservatory next the 
drawing-room from the cool house in the kitchen garden 
an interesting panful of one of the Moraeas. They seem 
a large family; all from the Cape of Good Hope. A 
piece was given me by someone who called it M. fimbri- 
ata. It has not been touched for two years, and was 
well baked all the summer, is now healthy and growing, 
and has four bloom -spikes ; last year it only threw up 
one. The flower is like a small, delicate Iris, of a lovely 
cold china-blue colour. The growth is quite different 
from that of an Iris. The stalk has a graceful bend, 
and a branching end with several buds, as is the case 
with so many of the Cape bulbs. The buds open one 
after the other as the flower dies. They will do when 
picked and in water. My Crinum Moorei I have had for 
three or four years in a large pot. It makes its leaves 
in February, and throws up without fail its enormous 
brown flower- stem. It is beginning to open now its 
lily -like flowers ; these, like the buds of the Morcea 
fimbriata, flower in succession, but, as each one lasts 



268 MORE POT-POURRI 

about a week in bloom, the flowering period is extended 
for a considerable time. It is well fed, while growing, 
with liquid manure. Its healthy, strong appearance and 
delicate scent give me a great deal of pleasure year by 
year. 

Mustard and Cress, much grown in boxes in early 
spring, and which is so delicious at five o'clock tea or 
with bread and butter and cheese, many people will not 
eat because it is so often gritty. This certainty makes it 
horrid ; and if the Cress is washed it makes it very wet, 
often without getting rid of the grit. The best way to 
grow it is to make the earth very damp before sowing, 
press it down flat, and then sow the seed very lightly on 
the top, making a division between the Mustard and the 
Cress. Cover it with a tile, or something else to make 
it dark, till it has sprouted, and then cut it carefully, 
straight into the plate or small fancy basket in which it 
is to be served, without washing it at all. If grown in 
this way and carefully cut, there will be no grit what- 
ever. I find small, low, round Japanese baskets of vari- 
ous sizes (from Liberty's) are most useful in a house 
with a garden. They are beautifully made and very 
pretty, and fruit can be picked into them at once, and 
served either at breakfast or luncheon without any fin- 
gering in the pantry or kitchen. 

March 28th. — Towards the end of this month, or 
quite the beginning of next, it is most important to erect 
shelters under walls or trees, where the sides can be 
protected from wind and the top covered up on cold 
nights, as now is the time it is so important to clear out 
greenhouses, both for the sake of the hardier plants that 
are going out, and the more special ones that remain 
inside. When they are moving, feeling the spring in all 
their fibres, that is the time they begin to get weak and 
drawn up if not given room and air. This is especially 



MARCH 269 

the case with the large old Geraniums that are in the 
greenhouse, Carnations, Abutilons, not to mention all 
the forced things that have done flowering. Putting 
them out under these shelters hardens them off well 
before they are planted out in the open. Nothing is 
more distressing to a real plant -lover than to see bulbs 
and Spirteas and Azaleas lying about untended, just 
after they have done their work so valiantly for us early 
in the year. If a plant is not worth care, it is not worth 
keeping. Throw it away at once, where it goes to make 
food for future generations, and the pot is useful when 
many pots are wanted. As I said before, but remind 
now, pieces of corrugated iron come in most usefully in 
making these temporary pens and shelters. For some 
plants, a sunk pit with a raised rim of brick or turf 
answers well. On this the sheets of iron are laid at 
night. 

March 30th. — At this time last year I wrote in my 
notebook that the cold and tempestuous weather, which 
had lasted the whole of March, moderated a little, and so 
I drove to the lovely wild garden in this neighbourhood, 
which is always so full of interest to me the whole year 
round. 

One of the most striking things in the garden was a 
plant of Daphne blagayana. I asked how they managed 
to flower so well what I found so difficult, and was told 
this Daphne had been protected with a wire hencoop 
covered with green canvas, which keeps out six or seven 
degrees of frost. The Adonis vernalis was out much 
earlier than mine, but the garden is damper and more 
sheltered. A. vernalis is a beautiful spring flower, but 
it dislikes being moved. There must be some difficulty, 
I suppose, about its cultivation, as one so seldom sees it. 
The Chionodoxas were the finest and largest I have 
ever seen, and were called Allenii. The true Anemone 



270 MORE POT-POURRI 

fulgens grcecii was a more brilliant colour than the ordi- 
nary one. I imagine it is rather difficult to get. A 
blue Chilian Crocus I had never seen before ( Tecophilwa 
cyaneo) is slightly tender and requires protection. It was 
out of doors in this sheltered wood, and had only been 
protected with a handglass. Forsythia intermedia is one 
of the best, and was flowering well. For anyone who 
has a damp, shady wood, there are no shrubs more 
beautiful than the various Andromedas. Yards of 
ground in this wood were covered with the Pyrola 
(Winter Green). Its small red berry was still on, and 
spring flowers and bulbs of all kinds were growing up 
through it. A more beautiful covering for the ground, 
where the soil is leafy and the moisture sufficient, does 
not exist. 

A good rockery label, as it shows very little, is a 
small stick with the bark left on, but for a flat piece cut 
off at the top, which is painted white, to receive the 
name. 

Receipts 

Turbot a la Portugaise. — Cut into Julienne strips 
equal quantities of carrots, onions, turnips, and celery. 
Fry lightly in butter till a good colour. Add fresh 
tomatoes, peeled, and with the seeds taken out. Cut 
them in slices before adding to the other vegetables. 
Moisten with a glass of white Sauterne wine and a 
little German sauce (see 'Dainty Dishes') to bind the 
vegetables, a little veal gravy, a little salt, a pinch of 
sugar ; and leave the whole to cook for twenty to 
twenty -five minutes, till of a good consistency. 

Meanwhile take the fillets of a moderate -sized turbot 
without bones or skin. Butter freely a rather shallow 
saute -pan, place the fillets in it, season with salt and 
white pepper, moisten with one or two glasses of 



MARCH 271 

Sauterne wine, and bring to the boil on the fire. Cover 
with a round bit of buttered paper, and finish cooking 
them inside the oven. Baste them constantly, so that 
they should not get dry. They will take from twenty to 
twenty -five minutes to cook. 

Serve the fillets in a silver dish — whole or in slices. 
Add to the vegetables the gravy of the fillets of turbot 
which remains in the saute -pan. Cook these to a turn, 
add a good bit of fresh butter and a little Hungarian 
'paplika' ; in default of which a little cayenne pepper 
can be used. Pour the vegetables over the turbot, to 
hide the fillets. Place for a few moments in a hot oven, 
and serve. 

When mushrooms are small or not very fresh, they 
are best chopped fine, warmed up with a little butter, 
pepper and salt, and poured on to some squares of 
hot toast. The yolk of an egg is an improvement 
for non- vegetarians. For broiling mushrooms in the 
oven, they are much better if done in bacon -fat instead 
of butter. 

Sutton's winter salad is now getting rather old. If 
it is cut up in small shreds, and a raw leek and beetroot 
added (also shredded fine), and the whole mixed together 
with a little half mayonnaise sauce or plain oil and 
vinegar, it makes a very good salad. 

We get the seedling lettuces in boxes a little earlier 
year by year, as it is such a pleasure to get back to a 
really fresh salad. It always recalls to me the young 
spring salads the monks used to bring to my mother at 
Cimiez, and which she attributed to some mysterious 
monkish secret. The fact is, the climate there enables 
lettuces to be sown out of doors very early. 

It is well to know that rhubarb can be made to take 
the flavour of anything you cook with it ; but with forced 
young rhubarb, when the flavour is delicate, it is a mis- 



272 MORE POT-POURRI 

take to put in anything except a little sugar. Cooks can 
be reminded at this time of year, when dried fruits 
are so useful as compotes — apricots, prunes, apples, etc. 
— that it is a great improvement in the stewing of them 
to add occasionally a tablespoonful of cold water, to pre- 
vent their cooking too fast. Bleached almonds are a 
pleasant addition as a change in these compotes. 

I read with regret the other day in a leading 
evening newspaper of the authoritative revival of the 
notion that eating tomatoes is the cause of the increase 
of cancer. This theory seems likely to deprive the poorer 
public of one of the best and cleanest blood -purifiers 
within reach of the inhabitants of our towns. It seems 
to me on a par with Swift's idea that his life -long head- 
aches were in a great measure due to a surfeit of fruit 
consumed when very young at Moor Park, and which, 
naturally enough, brought on the first attack, as a dish 
of strawberries will upset a meat -eating and gouty 
patient — this state of the blood being produced by 
eating, not too much, but too little fruit. The popula- 
tion of the whole south of Europe has eaten tomatoes 
from time immemorial. Would it not be far more 
sensible to look for the cause of cancer in the great 
increase of meat-eating, especially in towns, the over-fed 
and diseased cattle, tinned and other preserved animal 
foods, and the much consumed modern stimulant, 
beef -tea! 

I do not vouch for the absolute correctness of the 
following statements, but I find them among my notes, 
and I think there is some truth in them : 

Lettuce is calming and beneficial to anyone suffering 
from insomnia. 

Honey is wholesome, strengthening, cleansing, heal- 
ing, and nourishing. 

Lemons afford relief to feverish thirst in sickness, 



MARCH 



273 



and, mixed with hot water, are a help in biliousness, 
low fever, colds, coughs, rheumatism, etc. 

In cases of diseases of the nerves and nervous dys- 
pepsia, tomatoes are a powerful aperient for the liver, 
and are invaluable in all conditions of the system in 
which the use of calomel is indicated. 

Onions are useful in cases of nervous prostration, and 
will quickly relieve and tone up a worn-out system. 
They are also useful in all cases of coughs, colds, and 
influenza. 

Apples are nutritious, medicinal, and vitalising. They 
aid digestion, clear the voice, and correct the acidity of 
the stomach. 



APRIL 

Newspapers on cremation — More about Suffolk — Maund on flowers 
that close — Asparagus -growing on the seacoast — Peacock 
feathers for firescreens — Dining-room tables — Petroleum tubs 
in gardens — Neglect of natural history — Cactuses again — Old 
mills — Mr. Burbidge on sweet-smelling leaves — Florist 
Auriculas — Seed -sowing — Kitchen garden — Poultry. 

A 

April 1st. — This book is the last bit of work of the 
kind I shall 'ever do, and I am anxious to state, as I 
think of them, any views I may happen to have on 
various matters. 

I am deeply interested in watching the gradual 
development of public opinion on cremation. I casually 
alluded to this before, in reference to Mr. Robinson's 
well-known book on the subject. So far as I can judge 
from the newspapers, cremation is making a little way 
among the rich and well-known, who alone seem in this 
country to have the power of influencing the majority. 
But if what I read is true, a terrible fashion is growing 
around this excellent, clean, practical way of being dealt 
with after death, and that is that instead of one funeral 
there are to be three — one the cremation, another the 
funeral service in London, a third (and worst of all) the 
burying of the ashes. The newspapers gave an account 
of a cremated peer who, by his own wish or his family's, 
had the box with the collected ashes deposited in an 
ordinary -sized coffin, in order that the tenantry might 
have the honour of carrying the coffin in the usual way 
to the vault. This kind of thing, I think, tends to 
make the process ridiculous. And as only those are 

(274) 



APRIL 275 

cremated who wish it, detailed directions might be left 
that the ashes should be spread under the sweet vault of 
heaven, and a memorial erected, useful or otherwise, in 
church or street, as seems good to the family. That 
alone, in my opinion, gives dignity to the whole pro- 
ceeding ; the burying of box or urn is meaningless and 
almost puerile. How dogmatic it reads in print, to say 
simply what one feels ! But I mention my view of the 
question because, in talking with people, I so often find 
they have done such and such a thing merely because 
they had not thought of the other way. The old world, 
it is true, collected the ashes. But we know that in 
later days they were used by the Roman washerwomen, 
so long as they could get them, as we use soda, for the 
purifying alkalies they contained. I see no need for us 
to provide alkaline matter for future generations. 

April 2nd. — I have been lately to some of my Suffolk 
friends, in whose gardens I always learn so much. In a 
bowl of mixed flowers in my room I quickly detected a 
flower I did not know, a pale lavender double -daisy- 
shaped ball, many on a branch, and yet not crowded or 
thick. This turned out to be double Cineraria, grown 
from seed sent out by Veitch. I can see the horror of 
many of my good- colour- loving, bad - colour - hating 
friends, who dislike the ordinary finely -grown gardener's 
Cinerarias as much as I do. These double ones have 
the advantage of doing exceedingly well picked, and are 
one of the few plants which I really think are prettier 
double than single, though I afterwards saw that some 
of the plants were very crude and hard in colour. 

Dimorphotheca eclonis is a very pretty -growing, 
long -flowering pot -plant from Africa. It is of the same 
family as Calendula (Marigold), and very like Calendula 
pluvialis, figured in Maund's 'Botanic Garden,' that 
never -to -be -too -much -praised book. The whole family 



276 MORE POT-POURRI 

of Calendulas close on dull, damp days. Maund says of 
these plants : ' The Latin pluvialis, which pertains to 
rain, is used in reference to the influence which rain or 
dew has on the opening and closing of the blossoms of 
our present subject. All flowers, we believe, which 
close in rainy or cloudy weather have the property of 
closing at night. The same object, protection from 
moisture, is attained in each instance. This peculiarity 
is prettily alluded to in the following lines, which I 
copy from Dr. Withering's arrangement : 

The flower enamoured of the sun, 
At his departure hangs her head and weeps, 
And shrouds her sweetness up, and keeps 

Sad vigils, like a cloistered nun, 
Till his reviving ray appears, 
Waking her beauty as he dries her tears. 

The seed of this Calendula pluvialis may be sown in 
the open ground in April. 

I have never seen Messrs. Backhouse's gardens at 
York ; but so far as I can judge, from seeing various 
rock gardens they have made and planted, no one is half 
so good as they are for all Alpines. They have so im- 
proved the actual plants that they are scarcely to be 
recognised as the same which grow in their mountain 
homes. Many will say: 'What a pity!' But that 
applies to all rock -gardening. If one tries to grow 
Alpines, one wants them to be strong and to live. 
Saxifraga oppositifolia is, for instance, really like what 
Mr. Backhouse describes in his catalogues and David 
Wooster illustrated in his book on Alpine plants. Saxi- 
fraga sancta blooms in profusion as early as this, and is 
a bright, pale yellow. All these plants require either to 
be divided or else to have some handfuls of light earth 
thrown over them after flowering. Saxifraga bur- 



APRIL 277 

seriana is also very early, and has a pretty flower. But 
all these plants cost money, as they make no effect 
except in large clumps; and, to do well, I fear they 
want stiff, moist soils. 

Those who live near the coast may be interested to 
hear of an experiment which I saw being tried for grow- 
ing Asparagus in a wild state on the sandy shore of 
Suffolk. The gardener wrote me the following descrip- 
tion of what he had done : 

' In the spring of 1896, some yearling Asparagus 
plants were planted on the lower portions of some raised 
banks close to the sea. There was no attempt at 
preparing the ground ; it was not even properly cleared 
of weeds, or sufficient care exercised to plant the plants 
far enough apart to give them growing room. But the 
result far exceeds what might have been expected from 
such rough-and-ready treatment, for one can almost 
say they have grown wild. As regards the soil of which 
these banks are composed, the only remark one can 
make is that it is of a very questionable character, 
although of three classes : No. 1, pure, fine drift sand ; 
No. 2, drift sand crag and river mud mixed ; No. 3, 
river mud. The plants in No. 2 mixture have given the 
best produce, No. 3, river mud, being very close; whilst 
the produce of No. 1, from the fine drift sand, is very 
poor. There has been no attempt to give cultural aids 
in the way of manure up to the present. In summing 
up the result of the above experiment, it is quite evident 
that our home-grown Asparagus supplies might very 
easily be largely increased, and it is to be hoped the 
idea may be taken up as a means of profit by working 
men who are holders of land by the sea. 

' It will be necessary, if success in the production of 
the first-class article is to be arrived at, to observe 
clearly at the onset three things of the utmost impor- 



278 MORE POT-POURRI 

tance. First, thoroughly clean the land to be planted 
with Asparagus of all such weeds as Docks, Spear- grass 
or any other perennial weed, as if done at the first it is 
done for good, leaving the land free to be taken posses- 
sion of by the Asparagus roots, and doing away with 
any after -necessity of forking about them. Second, 
plant good, strong yearling plants not nearer together 
than two feet, better still if the distance is increased to 
three or four feet, marking the spot where each plant is 
planted with a stout stake, so that their position can be 
known. Third, the land must be kept free of weeds, 
and a dressing of manure, or any form of liquid 
manure, may be given occasionally during their season 
of growth.' 

I may add that, even in inland sandy places, I am 
certain a very fair success is to be obtained in growing 
Asparagus by planting them in odds and ends of places, 
even amongst shrubs, or anywhere in suitable corners. 
The difficulty is to mark the place clearly enough in 
winter, so that when a new hand comes in the roots may 
not be dug up. The Asparagus plants that annually 
bear a quantity of berries are by no means so large as 
those that are unfruitful, and great numbers of garden- 
ers now discard them at planting time where they are 
known to exist. This, no doubt, is a step in the right 
direction. I believe this excessive seeding of some 
plants is the result of check in growth in young stages, 
such as severe root -injury, overcrowding in the seed- 
bed, and poverty of soil. It is well to add that in 
all exposed places it is necessary to secure by staking 
the summer's growth, as it is very important that 
this should be preserved from being broken down, 
and it should not be cut down till quite late in the 
autumn. 

April 4th. — Returned home to-day. It is incredible 



APRIL 279 

the difference a little warm rain makes. The whole 
garden looks so changed from when I went away, four or 
five days ago ! 

I have in the entrance drive a large Balsam -bearing 
Poplar — or Tacamahac tree, as I believe it to be cor- 
rectly called. Mr. Loudon, in his 'Arboretum,' describes 
it exactly. Every garden of a certain size would be the 
better for having one of these trees, because of the ex- 
quisite smell of the long catkins produced in April. If 
one passes near the tree in showery weather, the air 
reminds one of a greenhouse filled with Cape Jessamine 
or Gardenia. The scent does not last very long, but 
while it does I know nothing sweeter. 

April 5th. — Years ago I had the great pleasure of 
going to D. G. Rossetti's studio. He was working at 
the small replica of his beautiful big picture now at 
Liverpool — Dante's dream — from the 'Vita Nuova.' In 
the picture Love holds his hand and gives Beatrice — 
dead — the kiss that Dante never gave her living. It is 
a poem which can be interpreted in a hundred ways, 
according to the mind and heart of those who look. To 
most people I suppose it is the glorious interpretation of 
a very common mental attitude — what we have not had 
is to us what is most precious and most beautiful and 
most lasting. When Rossetti ceased to be among us, 
and with the memory of that afternoon at his studio 
strong upon me, I went to his house in Cheyne Walk on 
the 'private view' day before the sale. I tried to buy 
one or two of his things, but they went at ver}' high 
prices, and I got nothing ; still I have always remem- 
bered what struck me as a lovely and original firescreen. 
I have had it copied several times, and it has given 
pleasure to many; so I will describe it here, that it may 
give pleasure to a few more. It was a little Chippen- 
dale plain mahogany screen, consisting of three narrow 



280 MORE POT-POURRI 

leaves. The surface of each of these was entirely cov- 
ered with the eyes of peacock feathers stuck one over 
the other, like the scales of a fish, each eye having the 
long feathers round it cut off. The other side of the 
panel was gilt, and I have lately found that thin oak 
takes the gilding best. I think in the original Rossetti 
screen it was gilt paper or leather. On this, long pea- 
cock feathers, split at the back to make them lie flat, 
were arranged in groups of three or five or six, at 
various heights, according to fancy. They look best if 
the stalks nearly meet at the bottom. The panels are 
glazed on both sides. A square firescreen can be ar- 
ranged in the same way. The effect is most satisfac- 
tory, and it has that great merit in furniture — unchange- 
ableness. The colours, being natural, never fade ; and 
the glass preserves the feathers from perishing. 

The following is a receipt for varnishing plaster 
casts, given me many years ago by Sir Edward Burne- 
Jones : 

Quarter of an ounce of gum elami, two ounces of 
white wax, half a pint of turpentine ; add a small 
squeeze from an oil-paint tube of raw umber when a 
small quantity of the varnish has been poured into a 
saucer ready for use. Apply with a brush, and spread 
quickly and evenly. This has to be done three times, 
with a day between each coating, and rubbed hard with 
a silk handkerchief between each painting. It gives 
casts and plaster figures the colour of old ivory, and 
makes them useful and decorative in a way they can 
never be without it. The varnish on the casts lasts for 
ever, never becomes dirty, and the dust can be rubbed or 
even washed off quite easily. The best place in London 
for plaster casts is Brucciani's (40 Russell street, Covent 
Garden) . I know few decorations more satisfactory — for 
those who appreciate them and in certain rooms — than 



APRIL 281 

these easts, either from Greek friezes or (best of all) the 
low -relief reproductions of Donatello's almost divine 
work. 

Dinner -tables in country houses are often a great 
puzzle. I know nothing so dreary as two or three 
people sitting down to a large, empty table at breakfast 
or dinner, because it is not worth while to change it, as 
a few more are coming to luncheon. When we first 
came here, even our family party varied so much in 
numbers that I thought it most desirable to find some- 
thing that would suit my notions, and be easily and 
quickly changed from little to big and vice versa. I 
hunted the old furniture shops with no success, and at 
last decided something must be made to cany out my 
intentions. We got three oak tables made of exactly 
the same size, the top of each being forty -five inches 
square. It was impossible for these tables to have four 
legs, as when put together, which was my plan for 
enlarging, they would be much in the way. The top 
was not very thick, so had to be firmly supported. This 
was done by two pieces of wood placed underneath the 
top and resting on four wooden columns (after the man- 
ner of Chippendale's round tables) fitting into a piece of 
wood fourteen inches square and eight inches from the 
floor. From the four corners of this spread out four 
feet, almost but not quite to the outside edge of the 
table above, thus making it quite firm. This table is 
equally suitable for two or four people. In order to 
make it comfortable for six, we lay a false top upon it a 
few inches longer at both ends. When guests are more 
numerous, two of the tables are put together, and for a 
still greater number the third can be added. They 
remain perfectly firm and level if made of seasoned 
wood, and need no fixing or machinery to join them. 
The oak can be varnished or left plain, smoked or 



2 8 2 MORE POT-POURRI 

stained green, according to taste. Mr. Watson, of 11 
Orchard street, London, makes them to order. For 
breakfast or luncheon we use the small tables apart, 
even when our party is complete. But at dinner this 
gives so much more trouble in waiting that we put them 
together. 

April 8th. — This year gardening knowledge is given 
to the public cheaper than ever. There is a new penny 
handbook on gardening to be got at any railway station 
(Ward, Lock & Co.). It is quite good, giving all the 
elementary instruction necessary. 

The uses of petroleum tubs in a garden are endless. 
I get my oil now from London, and so do not return the 
barrels. Mr. Barr told me the other day he was knock- 
ing the bottoms out of some, sinking them, one below 
the other, with a pipe in between, and puddling them 
with stiff clay at the bottom ; then he was going to 
plant them with specimens of the beautiful new French 
Nyrnphseas (Water Lilies), M. Marliac's hybrids being 
the most beautiful perhaps of all. A full, excellent, and 
detailed account of the cultivation of these Water Lilies 
is to be found in Mr. Robinson's last edition of ' The 
English Flower Garden.' As is natural at my age, I 
have a most elderly affection for types and parent 
plants, because, as a rule, they are less expensive to buy, 
and much more willing to be managed when one has got 
them. But I do not say this without from my heart 
giving all honour to cultivators of hybrid plants. 

Tub arrangements can be made of endless use even 
in the smallest gardens and back yards, if sunny — never 
forgetting the precious rain-water, which every slight 
slope in the ground makes it easy to collect if the tubs 
are sunk level with the ground. I mention things again 
and again, knowing well in our full modern lives how 
useful it is merely to remind. This year I have sunk a 



APRIL 283 

tub under every tap I have in the garden, as exposing 
the water to the sun and air prevents its being so hard 
and cold as when it comes straight out of the pipe. 

We have just had, what we always feel to be doubly 
precious in our sandy soil, a good shower of rain. Mr. 
Stephen Phillips, in the 'Saturday Review' last year, 
had a poem which describes this kind of shower beauti- 
fully and originally : 

After rain, after rain, 

Oh, sparkling Earth! 

All things are new again, 

Bathed as at birth. 

Now the pattering sound hath ceased, 

Drenched and released, 

Upward springs the glistening bough 

In sunshine now ; 

And the raindrop from the leaf 

Runs and slips ; 

Ancient forests have relief, 

Young foliage drips. 

All the earth doth seem 

Like Dian issuing from the stream, 

Her body flushing from the wave, 

Glistening in her beauty grave ; 

Down from her, as she doth pass 

Little rills run to the grass ; 

Or like, perhaps, to Venus when she rose 

And looked with dreamy stare across the sea, 

As yet unconscious of the woes, 

The woes, and all the wounds that were to be. 

Or now again, 

After the rain, 

Earth like that early garden shines, 

Vested in vines. 

Oh, green, green 

Eden is seen! 

After weeping skies 

Rising Paradise; 

Umbrage twinkling new 

'Gainst the happy blue. 



284 MORE POT-POURRI 

God there for His pleasure, 

In divinest leisure, 

Walking in the sun, 

Which hath lately run ; 

While the birds sing clear and plain, 

Behind the bright, withdrawing rain. 

Soon I shall perceive 

Naked, glimmering Eve, 

Startled by the shower, 

Venture from her bower, 

Looking for Adam under perilous sky ; 

While he hard by 

Emerges from the slowly dropping blooms 

And warm, delicious glooms. 

April 10th. — This is a time when I always find it a 
little difficult to keep the conservatory next the drawing- 
room gay. The large Crinum is going off, and the 
Azaleas are rather a bad metallic colour, which kills 
everything else. Primula farinosa is a pretty thing if 
well grown ; Cineraria cruenta is in full bloom, but I 
must get some fresh seed, as the flowers have all become 
one shade, which they were not at first. A charming, 
sweet little shrub which looks something like a white 
Daphne is Pittosporum tobira ; it comes in usefully at 
this time. We have had in succession since January 
pots of Polygonatum (Solomon's Seals), and they all go 
out into the reserve bed to be taken up another time, so 
are not at all wasteful. I have never had Forsythia sus- 
pensa so good in the garden as this year. The shrub is 
one golden mass, and when picked in long branches and 
peeled it is quite admirable in water. I suppose its 
being so good is partly an accident of the weather, 
partly that after flowering last year it was cut back hard, 
and partly that we twisted black thread about it to pre- 
vent the birds eating the buds in February, which they 
invariably do here, both with this plant and with 
Prunus Pissardii. Spirwa Thunbergii responds in the 



APRIL 285 

most delightful way to constant pruning. The more the 
dear little thing is cut, the better it seems to do. That 
is the real secret of all these early -flowering shrubs ; 
they do not exhaust themselves then with leaf -making 
and growth. Under those shrubs where there are no 
Violets and no white Arabis, the common Lungwort 
(Pulmonaria) makes an exceedingly pretty ground-cov- 
ering; for instance, under a Lilac bush or any deciduous 
shrub. This kind of spring gardening is only trouble, 
not expense, as all these plants divide into any number 
after flowering, and take away the bare look of a spring 
garden on light soils. When the leaves are out, the 
place they are in wants nothing and would grow nothing 
else. In fact, in these kinds of gardens the more the 
earth can be kept clothed and covered with light -rooting 
dwarf plants the better, as it saves weeding — always 
such a terrible business. 

Nothing, I think, tempts me so much to neglect all 
duties and to forget all ties as gardening in early spring 
weather. Everything is of such great importance, and 
the rush of work that one feels ought to be done without 
a moment's delay makes it, to me at least, feel the most 
necessary thing in life. A friend wrote to me once : 
' The best thing in old age is to care for nothing but 
Nature, our real old mother, who will never desert us, 
and who opens her arms to us every spring and summer 
again, warm and young as ever, till at last we lie dead 
in her breast.' 

And another wrote : ' Serenity, serenity, serenity and 
light ! Surely this is the atmosphere of Olympus ; and 
if we cannot attain to it in age, in vain has our youth 
gone through the passionate toil and struggle of its up- 
ward journey to the divine summits.' 

These thoughts fit better the solitude of bursting 
woods in the real country than the cultivating mania in 



286 MORE POT-POURRI 

a small garden , where we are all tempted to fight against 
Erasmus' assertion : 'One piece of ground will not hold 
all sorts of plants.' 

A great deal of pleasure is to be got by striking cut- 
tings of Oleanders in heat, and growing them on in a 
stove or greenhouse till the small plant flowers. I saw 
the other day a cutting of double pink Oleander struck 
last summer, with the largest, finest blooms, both for 
colour and form, I have ever seen. It had been brought 
forward, of course, in considerable heat. Oleanders are 
now to be had of all colours, from the deepest red to 
palest pink and pure white. They strike easier in sum- 
mer if the stalks of the cuttings are stuck in water for 
a few days before they are planted. 

I have lately been able to procure a book called ' The 
Insects of Great Britain,' by W. Lewin, 1795— an ambi- 
tious and comprehensive title indeed, and only one vol- 
ume of the series ever appeared. But Mr. Lewin began 
with the most attractive and showy of the insects ; viz., 
butterflies. His plates are most beautiful and careful, 
even for that excellent period of hand -coloured illustra- 
tion. I suppose that everyone knows the easy way to 
distinguish between butterflies and moths. In butter- 
flies the antennas, or what children call 'horns,' are 
always knobbed, and in moths they are the same thick- 
ness to the end. When I was in Florence I saw an old 
fireplace decorated with most lovely tiles. I am not 
knowing enough to say if they were Dutch or Italian, 
but they were very pretty. There were lines, brown and 
yellow, round each tile, the inner lines cutting off the 
corners ; then a dainty little wreath of Olive branches 
and inside it a butterfly, the butterfly on every tile being 
different. The ground-colour of the tile was a creamy 
white. This book would render the remaking of such 
tiles comparatively easy. 



APRIL 287 

Last summer (1898) a little book appeared called 
'Where Wild Birds Sing,' by James E. Whiting, pub- 
lished by Sydney C. Mayle, 70 High street, Hampstead. 
The writer is a real nature -lover. The motto of the 
book is from a speech by Gladstone, who said : ' I think 
the neglect of natural history was the grossest defect of 
our old system of training for the young ; and, further, 
that little or nothing has been done by way of remedy 
for that defect in the attempts made to alter or reform 
that system.' It is as a slight help in that direction 
that I name these charming modern natural history 
books, full of observation and love of nature, told in the 
most simple way. This pretty little 'Invitation,' at the 
beginning of the book, seems to be written by a relative 
of the author, as it is signed ' S. Whiting' : 

Come, leave the city's toil and din, 

The weary strife, 
The cankering cares and sordid aims, 

That deaden life. 

Come, leave behind this restless rush, 

This anxious strain ; 
Dame Nature tenders healing oalm 

For tired brain. 

Come, by yon grassy, shady lane 

Rest tired eyes 
On yonder meadows vernal green, 

On cloudless skies. 

Come to the woods, where Oak and Beech 

Their shadows fling. 
Come, weary toiler, rest awhile 

Where wild birds sing. 

I cannot understand anybody living in the country 
and not taking a special interest in birds — from the sky- 
lark, the smallest bird that soars, to the water wag -tail, 



288 MORE POT-POURRI 

the smallest bird that walks. The constant fight always 
goes on as to whether birds in a garden do good or harm. 
Nothing convinces my gardener that we do not suffer 
more than our neighbours from the non -killing of bull- 
finches. Poor little things! the harm they do is terribly 
more apparent than the good, which has to be taken on 
faith ; and this I do. 

As I stated before, I have lately been growing Water- 
cresses in pots and pans, with some measure of success. 
But I never feel my ignorance without looking about for 
some book which recounts an experience greater than 
my own. I have found a perfectly comprehensive little 
manual called 'Home Culture of the Watercress,' by 
Shirley Hibberd (E. W. Allen, 1878). Anyone interested 
in the subject should try and get this book. The reason 
of my comparative failure is that I did not stand the 
pans in receptacles that would hold water. Also Water- 
cresses are much better grown from small cuttings than 
from seed. Mr. Hibberd says that, if kept sufficiently 
moist and grown in his way, in about twenty days or 
less one ought to be able to pick a nice dish of Cresses. 
There is no garden, however small or dry, if watering 
can be abundant, that cannot grow Watercresses in sum- 
mer quite 'successfully as he recommends. The winter 
supply requires to be kept from frost. 

From the point of view of a real Cactus lover, I am 
but a weak-kneed disciple. I confess that a greenhouse 
full of these plants in various stages of bumpiuess and 
without a single flower, as is often the case, leaves me 
cold and rather depressed. But to grow a certain num- 
ber is of very great interest to me. The power they 
have of clinging to life is shared by few plants. This 
accounts for the fact that some of the finest kinds may 
be seen occasionally in cottage windows. The most 
gratifying point about cottage -window gardening is that 



APRIL 289 

in it fashion is unknown. Plants are handed down from 
father to son, with a total disregard as to whether these 
are fashionable or not. For a lengthened period Cac- 
tuses have been a neglected family. Just lately magnifi- 
cent groups have been exhibited by London nurserymen, 
so they are fast coming to the front again. 

Since writing my last book, I have learnt by experi- 
ence a good deal more about Cactus culture. Iu this 
country they require a kind of double treatment, accord- 
ing to whether you want them to grow or to flower. If 
you want small pieces to grow quickly, you must keep 
them most of the year in heat and well watered. If, on 
the other hand — and this especially applies to the hardier 
kinds — you want them to flower, you must starve them 
well through the winter. But I am sure that allowing 
them to shrivel from want of water is wrong. To 
prevent this, once the year is turned, I find occasional 
syringing better than much watering at the roots. Over- 
watering in winter generally means death, as they then 
rot at the crown. Sun they must have all through the 
summer. They are apt to be affected by a fungus blight; 
this must be cleaned off, of course. Like all the dis- 
tinct plant families in nature, the more we know about 
Cactuses the more interesting they are. I have a new 
sunny window which I am looking forward to filling 
with Cactuses this summer. I have there now, in a 
small pot, a red Phyllocactus (see Mr. W. .Watson's 
'Cactus Culture'), which has upon it two or three flow- 
ers in bloom and fifty -two buds. One of my correspond- 
ents was exceedingly sceptical about the same bloom of 
my night -flowering Cereus (see page 121 of my first 
book) having lasted in a cool, dark hall for two nights ; 
but it certainly did. Last year I was away from home 
all the precious summer months, so I do not know what 
happened to the 'bright -blooming Cereus, grand and 



290 MORE POT-POURRI 

glorious.' My correspondent adds that some years ago 
he got into a controversy with experts in ' The Gar- 
dener's Chronicle' about these flowers, and one corre- 
spondent said that his Cereus remained in bloom six 
weeks. That must have been a very large plant with 
many blooms. Some of the most beautiful Cereuses are 
so large they only seem to flower well if planted in the 
open ground under glass. I think more than ever that 
it is worth while to grow Cactuses — for anyone who 
spends the summer at home. I am obliged to add this, 
as one says 'Do you take sugar or cream?' at teatime, 
for hardly anyone now does stay at home. Cactuses 
have a way of flowering when they choose. They will 
not wait for you if you are away, and their blooms only 
last a short time ; but when they do condescend to 
flower, the beauty of them is exquisite — far more rare 
and lovely than any Orchid that I know. I have lately 
been able to procure a book for which I have waited a 
long time, ' Bliihende Cacteen,' by Dr. Pfeiffer and 
F. R. Otto. It was published in Cassel (Germany) in 
1843, and is a monograph on Cactuses, in two volumes 
bound in one. The prints are very well drawn, and the 
flowers hand -coloured. The text, unfortunately perhaps, 
is written only in German and French. 

For all who wish to increase their Phloxes, Michael- 
mas Daisies, and hardy Chrysanthemums, it is quite 
possible in this month or early in May not only to divide 
them, as I said before, but to take off the shoots and 
stick them in the ground. This gives you the plants 
much less tall than if allowed to grow on the original 
root. Many of the herbaceous things will root in this 
way in spring. Cuttings of the white Everlasting Pea 
certainly do. 

Gerasus pseudo-cerasus, as sold by Messrs. Veitch & 
Co., is very like Gerasus Watereri in Mr. Robinson's 



APRIL 291 

book. The whole family, and especially this one from 
Mr. Veitch, seems to me as well worth growing as any- 
thing I know among spring -flowering shrubs. 

April 20th. — We have walked this evening down to 
the old mill by the river Mole. I have, not unnaturally, 
a great affection for a watermill, as I passed all my 
childhood so close to its thumping mysteries, and my 
bedroom window as a girl was just above the rushing 
mill -tail, where the brown trout lay under the Laurels. 
My old mill is all modernised and altered now, while 
here the miller says with pride : ' I have been here fifty- 
two years, and I grind the flour with the old stones — no 
modern china rollers for me ! ' We buy his flour — his 
'seconds' and his 'whole-meal' — and his bran. The 
latter is what we really went down to fetch, as one of 
my nieces is fond of bran -water. This wildly stimu- 
lating beverage — far too much a tonic for my age — is an 
American drink. You pour cold water on two handfuls 
of fresh bran, let it stand for four hours, and then pour 
it off. It is supposed to contain some of the phosphates 
in the husks of the wheat, and consequently has much 
of the nourishing qualities of brown bread. 

April 26th. — Last year at this time I was able to go 
and hear at the Drill Hall, Westminster, Mr. Burbidge's 
exceedingly interesting address on ' Fragrant Leaves and 
Sweet -smelling Flowers.' This lecture has since been 
published in the ' Journal ' of the Horticultural Society 
for October, 1898. 

Beyond wishing to remind others how much pleasure 
and instruction one gets from being a Fellow of the 
Royal Horticultural Society, I take a sentence from his 
lecture which seems useful and desirable for all gar- 
deners. He says : ' I want you to rate all fragrant 
foliage quite as highly as you now profess to value 
sweet-scented blossoms. I also want to point out some 



292 MORE POT-POURRI 

of the essential differences, and advantages even, of 
foliage leaves as opposed to those floral leaves we call 
flowers. I am also particularly anxious to try and show 
that there is a sanitary basis, rather than a merely 
sensuous reason, for the usage of sweet odours and 
vegetable perfumes, whether the same be fresh or^dried, 
living, dead, or distilled. Modern researches have amply 
proved that ozone is developed when the sun shines on 
most kinds of fragrant plants, such as flowers, Fir 
and Pine trees, and sweet herbs generally.' It is not 
much trouble to sow Lemon pips, and yet what is 
more delicious and reviving than the crushed leaf of a 
Lemon tree ? 

I have found my increased number of Rosemary 
bushes a great joy. They live everywhere with the 
slight protection before described — namely, stuffed in 
all sorts of places under shrubs. But to grow and 
flower to perfection, as they do in Italy, they want to 
be under a wall in a warm corner, and fairly well 
nourished. No doubt their tendency to be killed in 
hard springs in the open must be the reason that so 
many gardens, especially small ones, where they are 
most precious, are content to do without them. 

Many books and periodicals praise the old customs 
of using aromatic herbs, but in old days the smells 
they had to conceal must indeed have been innumer- 
able. I suppose, unless by reading the accounts of 
how Russian peasants live even now, we cannot have 
any idea what England — and indeed all Europe — was, 
as regards dirt, two centuries ago. Our sweet modern 
homes are very different. All the same, how many 
houses are disagreeable from the smell of cooking 
which pervades them ! Burning dry Lavender, dried 
Rosemary, dried Cedar-wood, or the essential oils of 
any of these, entirely does away with this nuisance, 



APRIL 293 

from which we have most of us suffered. Burning 
things of this kind is also most useful in cases of 
colds, influenzas, etc. Putting a piece of stale bread 
into the saucepan when Cabbages are being boiled pre- 
vents their smelling at all. This is pretty well known, 
but seldom practised ; and the fact is, what causes the 
nasty smell to pervade a house is not so much boiling 
the Cabbages, but throwing the water while still hot 
down the sink. This should never be done till the 
water has cooled. 

Cultivating the art of smelling has certainly been 
neglected of late, which for every reason is a mistake, 
as the absence of a sense is a sign of defective health ; 
and if children's smell were tested, it would be noticed 
when deficient, and the reasons would be diagnosed. In 
healthy children the power of smell is often very acute. 
To the blind, sweet -smelling leaves are more valuable 
than sweet -smelling flowers, which they cannot see; 
and the leaves last longer, pack easier, and would be 
much appreciated in hospitals for eye diseases. 

Another very interesting letter I received about my 
last book I will quote : ' I am simply writiDg with the 
object of calling your attention to a group of plants 
which I have in my small way been cultivating for 
years, and which give me great pleasure every summer. 
I refer to the night -flowering and night -scented plants. 
To a business man like myself they are specially wel- 
come, as my time is all occupied with business during 
the day, and the evening only is left in which we can 
enjoy our gardens. The most interesting in the group 
is that exquisite little gem of an annual, Schizopetalum 
Walkeri. It has no English name, unfortunately ; you 
will find it in William Thompson's catalogue. This 
little flower is pure ivory white, of a Maltese cross 
form, and after dark throws out a most delicate per- 



294 MORE POT-POURRI 

fume, not unlike the Almond. I also sow a packet or 
two of Mathiola bicomis, or Sweet-scented Stock. It 
is powerfully fragrant after dusk, and is of a pleasant 
character. Then I have a few plants of Nicotiana 
affinis scattered about the garden. These you will 
know better than myself. There is also the Hesperis 
tristis, which I find somewhat difficult to grow here 
[Manchester] . Also (Enothera odorata, another of the 
type. So that here you have a small group of plants 
which kindly reserve their fragrance, store it up dur- 
ing the daytime, and then considerately during the 
twilight and evening, when the breadwinner of the 
family comes home after his day's toil, throw out their 
precious odours and make the garden all the pleasanter 
and more refreshing for the night stroll after supper.' 

April 28th. — Some years ago I was anxious to grow 
some florist Auriculas, but I must frankly own we were 
never very successful. They took too much frame-room 
and wanted too much care ; but for anyone who likes to 
grow special flowers in a small space I cannot imagine 
anything more interesting than Auricula -growing. The 
following directions were written out for me by a most 
successful Auricula-grower, and they may prove very 
useful to some few people who are fond of these flowers : 

' The fancy or florists' Auricula is divided into green 
edges, gray edges, white edges, and selfs. These flowers 
should be grown in pots. One of the most famous 
growers (and a man of high class, although his station 
is only that of a Sheffield workman) is Ben Simonite. 
According to him, a compost of two parts fibrous loam, 
one part old hotbed manure, one part old leaf -mould, 
with sufficient charcoal the size of split peas to keep the 
soil open, is suitable. This should be put together in 
the autumn, and turned over frequently during the win- 
ter. The right time for repotting is after the bloom is 



APRIL 295 

over ; at this moment (early in April) my earliest plants 
are in bloom. When potted, the plants require occa- 
sional watering, but freedom from drenching rains. If 
by chance over -much watered, time should be allowed 
for this excess to pass away, and the plants not watered 
again until quite dry, although not nagging. Little else 
is needed, save to remove decaying foliage and keep 
down the aphis or greenfly. All the summer, and until 
November, the plants may remain in the open air, save 
when they are protected from heavy rains. Early in 
November they go into a coldframe, but ventilated by 
day whenever the weather is at all fine. Water should 
be given seldom, but sufficiently when given at all. 
Great dryness will be endured without damage, but there 
is a point which must not be overpassed. Towards the 
end of January life revives, and water is more needful. 
Prior to this, if it be possible, the pots should be so 
placed as to receive what light there is, which accelerates 
the resumption of growth. About the middle of Febru- 
ary, if the growth is evidently progressing, the plant 
should be top-dressed with compost, rather stronger than 
that used in planting — so fully that side -shoots may be 
able to root into the top-dressing. On these offsets de- 
pend the reproduction of named kinds. From seed new 
varieties may be raised, but the offspring are often very 
unlike the parents. In March the flower -stems begin to 
rise, and during April the plants flower. In this month 
the annual exhibition at the Kensington Horticultural 
takes place. It is important to protect the plants in 
severe weather by means of matting, also against cut- 
ting winds ; but they are hardy, and their great risk is 
not cold, but rotting through excessive moisture, which, 
affecting the foliage, attacks the neck of the plant if 
decaying leaves be not picked off.' 

Alpine Auriculas are easily grown from seed, and 



296 MORE POT-POURRI 

require much less care (see 'English Flower Garden 7 ). 

I am often asked what my vegetable seed bill amounts 
to. The fact is, I never know. Seeds are so cheap that 
I get what I want. Where the waste comes in is in sow- 
ing them in too large quantities at one time, instead of 
in succession, not thinning out, etc. It is always worth 
while to sow all useful vegetables several times over, 
whether in spring or summer. 

The ordinary amateur feels the extreme difficulty of 
growing flower seeds either in boxes or even out of 
doors, and says that in the end it is decidedly cheaper to 
buy plants. This is, of course, true of all the strong- 
growing herbaceous things. But every gardener soon 
finds that if you want any quantity of one thing, or if 
the plant is not particularly suited to the soil, it is in- 
finitely better to grow the plants from seed than to buy 
one or two specimens, which constantly die. I would 
always advise beginners to try sowing seeds in little 
squares in the seed-bed. It is only by this process that 
they can learn what does well from seed and what does 
not. Seed-beds in April should be in different aspects 
— some cool and damp, and some dry and sunny, accord- 
ing to the nature of the plant sown and the country it 
comes from — and left, only weeded, for one or two 
years. I am quite sure no garden will ever look full and 
varied all the year round without a great number of 
plants being grown from seed. It is a later stage of 
gardening, that is all, just as collecting and saving your 
own seed is a later stage still. 

I saw the other day in a Suffolk newspaper some ob- 
servations on seed -sowing under glass. They seemed to 
me so useful just at this time of year that I copied part 
of the article : ' Sowing seeds may to the superficial 
observer seem a simple affair ; yet it is one of the most 
important operations in gardening. There is a great 



APRIL 297 

difference even amongst gardeners in raising plants from 
seed. One may succeed with all kinds of seeds, provid- 
ing the seed is good ; whereas another gardener will 
have the greatest difficulty even in getting ordinary 
seeds to germinate. Of course, the kind of seeds I 
mean are choice greenhouse, stove, or Alpine. My ex- 
perience teaches me that a great many failures are the 
result of sowing the seed too early in the year. The 
particular seeds I mean are those sown early in spring, 
either of plants for conservatory decoration or to bloom 
in flower beds and borders during the coming summer. 
Take, for example, those charming greenhouse flowers 
the Cape Primrose (Streptocarpus) . Sow this seed in 
January, and the greatest difficulty is experienced in 
getting it to germinate ; but if sown in April, it will 
germinate as easily as Lobelia. But perhaps giving 
choice seeds daily — nay, I might almost say hourly — 
attention is the most important point of all. The seed 
may be sown at the proper time and be placed in a suit- 
able place ; the soil may be everything to be desired ; 
in fact, everything used — pots, pans, boxes, and drainage 
— may be all right, yet if they do not receive proper 
attention for days, weeks, and months before the seed 
grows, and after, as the case may be, failure will surely 
follow such neglect. This attention means keeping the 
compost in that happy condition which is neither wet 
nor yet too dry.' 

Sometimes it is a help to put a little wet Sphagnum 
moss on the top of the pot under the piece of glass, or 
the pot may be covered with paper. The great thing to 
aim at with all seeds, whether large or small, is to try 
to keep the soil sufficiently moist, without having to 
water them until they begin to grow. This is difficult, 
well-nigh impossible, with those seeds which are a long 
time in the soil before they germinate. Still, this is 



298 MORE POT-POURRI 

what should be aimed at. Once they are up, it is neces- 
sary to water very gently. A good way is to put a 
small piece of sponge in the hole at the bottom of a 
flower -pot, and then fill the pot with water of the same 
temperature as the greenhouse, and move it about so 
that the water dribbles gently through. With large 
seeds it is always a good plan to soak them twenty- four 
hours in tepid water before sowing them. An excellent 
way of handling very small seedlings is to take a little 
bit of bamboo, bend it in two like a pair of tweezers, 
and lay the seedlings on a piece of paper ; it is then 
quite easy to handle the smallest seedlings without in- 
jury. 

The three or four weeks of severe frosty weather in 
March has made us very short of vegetables. I never 
buy when I have not guests, as feeling the pinch makes 
one alive to one's deficiencies, and causes one to manage 
better another year. So I thought I would try and see 
how I liked the root we grow for the cows. We have 
plenty left, as the winter has been so mild. It is Sut- 
ton's Mangold-Wurzel, a yellow kind. We boiled it till 
tender, whole like a beetroot, and when hot cut it into 
slices, and ate it with cold butter. It was excellent. In 
texture it was like a beetroot ; in taste, half like a sweet 
Potato, half like a Chestnut. When Mangolds are 
young they mash like Turnips. 

Early this month Hops begin to show through the 
ground. When the shoots are about six or eight inches 
high, before the leaves develop, they can be picked, 
tied together in a bundle, and cooked exactly like green 
Asparagus. They have not much taste, but are pleas- 
ant in substance, and are supposed on the Continent 
to be exceedingly wholesome. A vegetable called 
'Good King Henry' is worth growing to eat in the 
same way, and later the leaves cook like Spinach. 



APRIL 299 

It is also worth knowing that at this time of year* 
when vegetables are scarce in the country, the fresh 
green leaves of Rhubarb — generally thrown away — 
make an excellent vegetable dressed like Spinach, 
either with or without a little butter. 

One of the great difficulties in a light soil is a con- 
tinuous supply of Spinach, and gardeners never will 
sow a sufficient succession in dry weather, when it 
must be watered. It has a great tendency to run to 
seed. In Sutton's book, ' The Culture of Vegetables 
and Flowers,' he faces the difficulty and gives instruc- 
tion for its remedy very efficiently. No other Spinach 
approaches in excellence the real one, Spinacia oleracea ; 
but for an extension of the supply two others should 
be grown in every fair -sized kitchen garden. The 
New Zealand Spinach (Tetragonia expansa) flourishes 
in the hottest weather, and is best started in a box 
under glass. The perpetual Spinach or Spinach Beet 
(Beta Gicla) is a most valuable plant for its continuous 
supply of leaves. Sutton says : 'When the leaves are 
ready for gathering they must be removed, whether 
wanted or not, to promote continuous growth.' This 
is the case with a good many vegetables — Garden 
Cress, Watercress, Chicory, etc. I shall give special 
attention this year to sowing Spinach in all sorts of 
places. Aspect and shade make so much difference in 
the rapidity with which things grow ! 

Purslane is a vegetable not often sown in English 
gardens, but it makes a good summer salad, and is 
useful in soup or dressed as Spinach. 

Last year I tried growing several kinds of Pota- 
toes — five or six varieties recommended by Sutton — 
but I do not think any turned out better than, if as 
well as, Sutton's ' Magnum Bonuin,' which we have 
grown for years. ' Ring -leader' is the one we grow 



3 oo MORE POT-POURRI 

for the first early Potatoes ; and a red waxy Potato, 
whose name I do not know, is most useful for cooking 
in some ways. All must find out for themselves what 
Potatoes suit their soils best, as it is a subject deserv- 
ing attention and care. 

The small, round button Onions so much used abroad 
are often omitted in English gardens, though they are 
merely the result of not thinning out the crop at all. 
Choose a piece of poor, dry ground ; make this fine on 
the surface ; sow in the month of April, thickly but 
evenly ; cover lightly ; roll or tread, to give a firm 
seed-bed. If sown shallow, the bulbs will be round. 
Besides looking much prettier when braised, this small 
kind keeps much better through the winter than when 
made to grow large by thinning. 

We grow two kinds of Sorrel now — one with a small, 
round leaf, and the other the large-leaved ordinary 
garden kind. It is quite easy, for those who like the 
vegetable, to lift plants in the spring and grow them 
on in a frame or greenhouse. It is a thing there is 
always difficulty about buying, and it is not much 
liked by English people. It wants to be freshly 
gathered and well dressed. 

There are endless numbers of books on poultry 
within the reach of everybody ; and lately, in Ward, 
Lock & Co.'s collection of penny handbooks, one has 
been issued on poultry which is quite useful. But, like 
all modern books, it is a little above the ordinary keeper 
of cocks and hens for domestic purposes, making the 
matter appear unnecessarily difficult. Having a good 
big field for them to run in here, and the soil being 
dry and light, I have not had disease amongst my 
poultry. Among the list of horrible diseases given in 
this penny book, we come to the following sentence : 
'Egg-eating. — This is rather a vice than a disease, and 



APRIL 301 

very troublesome to cure.' The author then gives a 
cruel account of punishment to be used, in the hope 
of disgusting the offender. This is an excellent instance 
of the trend of modern thought. Egg -eating is, I am 
sure, solely the result of giving the poor hens an insuf- 
ficient quantity of the food required by nature to make 
their shells hard. Disease among animals is much the 
same as among people, and is produced often by large 
quantities of food, but of an improper kind. Diseased 
poultry means over- crowding, over-feeding — in fact, 
the fault lies in the way they are managed. Hereditary 
vice may, we hope, in hens at any rate, be left out of 
the question. Another thing the author suggests is 
that when a fowl is killed the entrails should be given 
to the pigs. This is absolutely wrong, in my opinion, 
as pigs are essentially vegetarians, and unclean feeding 
is apt to make them diseased, which is very serious for 
the eaters of pork. 

One is always being asked, Does keeping poultry 
pay ? I never keep strict accounts of what things cost 
me. Nothing one does at home ever pays, unless one 
looks into it entirely oneself. I only bring the rules 
of ordinary common -sense and proportion to bear on 
the matter. 

For early egg -laying it is, I think, desirable to have 
some of the southern breeds, such as Leghorns, Span- 
ish, etc. 

I know very little about my own poultry, as I cannot 
make pets of things that have to be killed, and they are 
entirely managed by my gardener and his wife. The 
following is their account of what they do, and they 
certainly have been very successful : ' We set the hens 
as early in January as we can on about nine eggs, as 
the weather is cold ; on thirteen eggs later, being care- 
ful that the eggs should not have been frosted. We 



3 o2 MORE POT-POURRI 

make the nests of hay in the henhouse, which is a warm 
one. The early-hatched chicks are best for autumn kill- 
ing, as they begin to lay about July for a short time, 
and then stop laying till the next spring. The sitting 
hens are fed once a day on barley, about a handful to 
each hen ; the little chickens on grits the first day, and 
then on oatmeal about every three hours. When they 
are about a fortnight old they have a little barley in the 
middle of the day. The mother hen is kept cooped up, 
away from the other fowls, till the chicks are about six 
weeks old, when they all run in the field. March- and 
April -hatched birds we keep for stock, as they make 
the best fowls and layers about October. We shut up 
the pullets in a run for laying. We keep no hens older 
than two years, and have fresh cockerels every year. 
We feed the stock -fowls twice a day — on soft food in 
the morning, and barley in the afternoon. The fowl- 
houses are white -washed every spring, and kept cleaned 
out twice a week, and the floors dusted with slack lime. 
The fowls have a good field to run in, so they get 
plenty of grass. The shut -up pullets require plenty of 
grit and greenstuff, and they are fond of a Mangold to 
pick at. Fowls are very fond of bones or scraps, or 
anything that amuses them. It is very bad for fowls 
to be dull. When we see a fowl not eating or not 
looking well, we keep it apart for a day or two, give it 
a dose of castor oil, and, if not soon better, we kill and 
bury it.' I am sure this is a better plan than trying to 
doctor sick birds. I know no more miserable sight than 
unhealthy poultry. We rear a few ducks every year, 
but kill them in the summer, as they are great con- 
sumers of food. 

In October I always buy, as I have said before, three 
or four young turkeys, and have them fed here for 
Christmas -time. It saves three or four shillings on each 



APRIL 



3°3 



bird. Any fowls that are going to be killed ought to be 
shut up for twelve hours without food. Turkeys and 
geese require rather longer. Home-grown poultry is 
much better not plucked or cleaned out till just before 
cooking. Very young chickens are best eaten quite 
freshly killed. 

Fop Preserving" Eggs. — Put some fresh eggs in a 
large basin or jar, and pour lime-water over them. Two 
days after, take out the eggs and look through them 
carefully. Put away those which are at all cracked. 
Those which are quite in good condition put into a 
second jarful of lime-water, and stand this jar in the 
cellar. See that the eggs are always covered by the 
lime-water. They will keep for quite six months or 
more. The first jarful of lime-water can be used to try 
another lot of eggs. 

This is another and even simpler way of preserving 
eggs, which we find answers perfectly well here : Fill 
a small shallow box deep enough to cover the eggs — 
cardboard does quite well — with chaff. Put the fresh 
eggs, just laid, into this with the points downwards. 
Tie on the lid ; and when you have more than one box, 
they can be tied together as they fill. The whole reason 
of this plan is that the box should be reversed once 
every twenty -four hours. If this is really done, the 
eggs keep perfectly fresh for weeks — so fresh that they 
are not to be distinguished from new-laid eggs, except 
that they poach beautifully; which, as everyone knows, 
a new-laid egg does not, any more than a stale one. If 
the boxes are tied together, it is no trouble turning them 
over beyond remembering it. The natural history of 
this is that when the egg is laid the germ is alive, and if 
the egg lays on its side the germ is not only alive, but 
grows for many days. When the germ in the egg has 
consumed its nourishment, it dies from cold, and in- 



304 MORE POT-POURRI 

stantly the egg goes bad. By putting the eggs end 
downwards, and turning them daily, the germ dies at 
once and never grows, and the egg remains good. Many 
will not believe this. I can only say, 'Try it.' If you 
either turn the box yourself, or have anyone you can 
depend upon to do it for you, you will not find that it 
fails. 

If you rub perfectly fresh -laid eggs with butter, they 
keep for a long time. If they have been laid twelve 
hours before the butter is applied it is no good. Mrs. 
Roundell says this receipt is of no use : perhaps because 
she has not tried it with fresh enough eggs. 

The word 'egg 7 reminds me of such an extremely 
funny anecdote in Mr. Max Miiller's 'Auld Lang Syne' 

that I must crib it. A certain Duke of M , being 

very fond of natural history, was much interested in 
some emus which he possessed. Having occasion to go 
to town, his agent wired to him : ' The emu has laid an 
egg. In your Grace's absence we have taken the largest 
goose we could find to hatch it.' 

I am told that the receipts both in my former book 
and those in ' Dainty Dishes ' were considered extrava- 
gant. I have now found a cheap little book, called 
'Economical Cookery,' by Kate Addison, which meets 
the want and is true to its name. At the end are two 
or three most useful hints. If you want your onions to 
fry a good colour, do not peel them. Another hint is 
that if you boil corks for five minutes before using them, 
they fit in the bottles much tighter, and so preserve 
what is inside much better. 

There is a French confectioner named De Bry (45 
Southampton Row, and New Oxford street, London), 
whom I have only lately got to know, and who has the 
excellent device : 'Vendre bon pour vendre beaucoup.' 
He sells jams which will be highly appreciated by that 



APRIL 305 

increasing class — jam -eaters. I recommend this motto 
to all those who bottle fruit and make jams, especially 
in our colonies. I have been lately given a large sam- 
ple of West Indian jams, but they are not up to the 
mark. I should imagine there was a great opening for 
all kinds of preserved fruits, syrups, jams, etc., from 
abroad, where so many excellent fruits grow almost 
wild. But they never can be a commercial success if 
not done carefully. They must look pleasant to the eye, 
be;juicy, and not too sweet. The French alone seem to 
have the art of knowing how to bottle and preserve 
fruit. I can buy in London bottled French raspberries, 
not preserved in sugar at all, and as fresh and good as 
if newly gathered from a garden ; indeed, better than 
from my garden, where in dry seasons raspberries 
always fail. 



MAT 

The ' French Sugar Pea'— The ' Westminster Gazette' on Tulips— 
The legend of the Crown Imperial — Article on ' Sacred Trees 
and Flowers' — Peeling of Poppies — Cooking receipts — Books 
on Florence — Mr. Gladstone on traveling— Journey to Italy — 
Arrival at Areetri. 

May 1st. — Gorse thoroughly peeled and wedged (see 
first volume) lasts for weeks in water, and the warmth 
of the room makes the flower come out so well it is 
almost a different -looking plant. 

In these light soils all the fruit trees over -flower 
themselves so much, like pot -bound plants, that no one 
need scruple to pick branches of blossom to put in water 
in the house. The trees can never carry even the fruit 
that sets. 

The evergreens are beginning then* spring shoots. I 
think it must have been at about this time of year, when 
the young leaves on the Holly have no spines, that 
Southey wrote : 

All vain asperities, day by day, would wear away, 
Till the smooth temper of my age should be 
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree. 

A book published in 1857, called 'Curiosities of 
Natural History,' by Francis T. Buckland, is very in- 
terestingly written, and will be found full of information 
on all sorts of subjects — from the anatomy of the water- 
rat to Virgil's description of the death of Laocoon. 

At this time of year, when the frame double Violets 
are over, which do so well for finger-bowl bouquets in 

(306) 



MAY 307 

spring, I find a plant or two of Nicotiana affinis, sown in 
the autumn and grown in the greenhouse, very useful. 
One flower cut off, with a branch of Prince of Orange 
Geranium or a piece of Sweet Verbena — of which there 
ought to be plenty now, if they have been properly 
grown on — make charming little bouquets for this pur- 
pose. 

The gardener of a friend of mine sowed some self : 
saved seed of Nemesia strumosa in September in a pan, 
pricking them off twice — the second time a single plant 
in a small pot. The result was some charming well- 
grown plants, which flowered beautifully in April, and 
the flowers were larger and finer than the summer ones 
out of doors. 

The French 'Mange -tout' Peas (Sutton catalogues 
them as 'French Sugar Peas') are not yet sown gener- 
ally enough in England. English cooks do not under- 
stand (and how should they without explanation!) that 
they are not shelled, but the pod and the pea are boiled 
together, and a little butter added before serving. 

In the 'Westminster Gazette' of last spring there was 
an interesting article on the history of Tulips, called 
forth by the Tulip show at the Royal Botanic Gardens 
and the general revival of interest in the flower, which 
has as romantic a history as any plant all the world over. 
The article being too long to quote here entirely, I give 
a few extracts : 'In the seraglio of the Shadow 6f God, 
when the world was a few centuries younger, there was 
one festival in early spring which for dazzling splendour 
outshone the rest of the Eastern fairylike night scenes. 
Unnumbered artificial suns, moons, and stars lit up the 
Sultan's beautiful gardens, and in the mystic light 
which turned night into day tens of thousands of Tulips 
stood proudly up on their tall, slim stalks, the goblet of 
each blossom perfect in form and in colour. Among 



308 MORE POT-POURRI 

this dazzling dream the Sultan and his harem, and 
whoever else was great and mighty at the Court of Con- 
stantinople, worshipped at the shrine of the Tulip, and 
the whole of the East echoed the praise of the thouliban, 
or turban flower, the corruption of which term has 
become our name for the flower. 

' The West at that period knew nothing of the Tulip, 
though it had been great in the East for more years 
than men remembered. India, Persia, and the Levant 
had, in the course of ages, woven around it countless 
legends of love and life and death ; great poets sang its 
praises ; the heathen laid it at the feet of his gods, and 
the early Christian of the East pointed to it as the 
"Lily of the field" which afforded to Christ the subject 
of a divine sermon to which the world has clung, and 
still is clinging, as to a never -failing help when the 
burden of life grows heavy. 

' In the sixteenth century an ambassador of the 
Emperor of Germany to the Sublime Porte, going from 
Adrianople to Constantinople shortly after midwinter, 
came upon a wondrous sight. On the roadside, among 
the weeds and grasses, there rose in glorious beauty 
clump after clump, bed after bed, of tall, goblet-shaped 
flowers. As the sun shone upon them they blazed with 
the colour of fire and sunlight, and the smooth, broad 
petals formed a deep cup classically simple and perfect, 
closing over a heart of gold. 

' Before long a few Tulip bulbs reached Germany, 
and thence in 1577 came to England.' 

We all know how Tulips were then taken up by 
Dutchmen. The article says that for the three years 
from 1634 to 1637 Holland was but a large asylumful of 
tulipomaniacs. I have just been told how that in one 
vineyard in Alsace, and in one alone, the pretty wild 
tulip Tulipa reflexa flourishes abundantly. I think more 



MAY 



309 



might be done by planting in England the type Tulips, 
and leaving them to their fate, especially on chalky soils, 
which they seem to like. 

The Crown Imperials are nearly over. They have 
not been as good as usual this year ; the hard frosts in 
March blackened their poor crowns. A kind corre- 
spondent was shocked at my non- botanical language in 
speaking of the beads of liquid in the hanging flowers 
as water, not honey. I merely meant that they looked 
like pure water. He writes : ' I think on examination 
you will find them honey. As you do not mention it, 
you may not know of the legend iD connection with this 
flower, which is as follows. Please forgive me if a 
twice-told tale : When our Lord in His agony was walk- 
ing in the Garden of Gethsemane, all the flowers save 
this one alone bowed their heads in sympathetic sorrow. 
It held its head aloft in supreme disdain ; whereupon 
our Lord gently rebuked it. Smitten with shame at last, 
it hung its head, and since then has never been able to 
raise it, and those who care to turn its face upwards 
always find tears in its eyes.' He closed his letter with 
the following practical hint : ' For protective purposes — 
shelters — you may find the bamboo baskets in which 
moist sugar is sent from South America, about three feet 
high and nearly six feet round, when split open on one 
side and flattened out, make good, light shelters.' 

I am very fond of reading old 'Edinburghs' and 
'Quarterlies,' and one is apt to find in them a helpful 
contribution to anything that one may have been think- 
ing about. This happened to me the other day when, 
taking up the 'Quarterly Review' for July, 1863, I came 
upon a most fascinating article, full of folk-lore and 
tradition, called 'Sacred Trees and Flowers.' I should 
delight in quoting several of the stories, but room fails 
me. Working through all the older traditions of Europe, 



3 io MORE POT-POURRI 

the writer gives full credit, as is due, to the monks, and 
says : ' To the Benedictines and Cistercians — the first 
great agriculturists of Europe and the first great gar- 
deners, the true predecessors of the Hendersons and 
Veitches of our own day — we are indebted for many of 
the well -loved flowers that will always keep their places, 
in spite of their gayer, but less permanent, modern 
rivals. The Wallflower, that "scents the dewy air" 
about the ruined arches of its convent ; the scarlet 
Anemone, that flowers about Easter -tide, and is called 
in Palestine the blood -drops of Christ ; the blossoming 
Almond tree, one of the symbols of the Virgin, and the 
Marigold that received her name, are but a few of the 
old friends, brought long ago from Syria by some pil- 
grim monk, and spread from his garden over the whole 
of Europe. ... In the cloistered garden, too, the 
monk was wont to meditate on the marvels of the plants 
that surrounded him, and to find all manner of mys- 
terious emblems in their marks and tracings. Many 
displayed the true figure of the Cross. It might be 
seen in the centre of the red poppy ; and there was a 
" Zucca" (fig) at Rome, in the garden of the Cistercian 
Convent of Santa Potentiana, the fruit of which, when 
cut through, showed a green cross inlaid on the white 
pulp, and having at its angles five seeds, representing 
the five wounds. . . . The Banana, in the Canaries, 
is never cut with a knife, because it also exhibits a rep- 
resentation of the Crucifixion, just as the Fern root 
shows an Oak tree. 7 But the fame of the greatest of all 
such marvels arrived at Rome in the year. 1609, when 
Bosio describes as maraviglioso fiore the Passion Flower 
of the New World. The first to describe the Passion 
Flower in England was our own Master Parkinson, who 
said that it should be assigned to that ' bright Occidental 
star, Queen Elizabeth, and be named, in memory of her, 



MAY 311 

the Virgin Climber.' The Passion Flower, however, has 
retained its original name and significance. It is the 
one great contribution of the western hemisphere to 
the symbolical flowers of Christendom ; and its starlike 
blossoms have taken a worthy place beside the mystical 
Roses and Trefoils of ecclesiastical decoration. 

When I replanted the Ornithogalum pyramidale in 
September last year, I planted between them some pieces 
of Galega officinalis, so easily divided in the autumn. 
The fresh, bright green makes a groundwork for the 
long spikes of the bulbs, and later it gives a succession 
of flowers of its own pretty white or pale lilac. In dry 
seasons it is most useful for picking. In one place I 
find it is growing quite successfully. In a more shaded 
corner under a wall — no sun reaching it in winter — 
every plant of the Galega has died. I merely mention 
this as one more instance of how the hardiest plants do 
well or not within a few yards of each other. I saw, in 
a friend's garden to-day, Alstrcemerias growing like 
weeds all over the place. I remarked on this. 'Yes,' 
she said, 'it's quite true.' For five years I had never 
been able to get one seed to grow, and the plants I 
bought invariably died. Now I have so many that I 
must dig them out with a spade.' 

I do not think I mentioned before that all kinds of 
Poppies travel beautifully if they are gathered in bud ; 
and if, on arrival, the hard husk is peeled off from the 
buds, they revive and flower and last longer. Forcing open 
the buds exhausts the flowers, and then they open, but 
to fade and die. The Shirley and Iceland Poppies are 
prepared in this way for the London market. Some of 
the Campanula tribe do best dry and starved ; they 
flower well instead of going to leaf. This is especially 
the case with the little C. ccespitosa and with G. grandis, 
which is so useful for covering the ground under shrubs 



312 MORE POT-POURRI 

and in bare, dry places. G. pyramidalis, though it likes 
half shade, enjoys a rich, rather moist place. G. per- 
sicifolia is never quite so beautiful here as I have seen 
it on stiff soils. 

It is well in spring and early summer to make con- 
stant cuttings of the white Swainsonia. It does well 
out of doors and in, and is a very refined, pretty little 
plant. 

Receipts 

To Cook Spaghetti (small Italian macaroni).— Put 
some bacon-fat, or any pieces of fat, in a saucepan 
with onions, carrots, herbs, etc., all chopped up, and a 
little sugar. Fry them slightly. Pour off the fat. Cut 
up some tomatoes, add a little stock, and simmer it all 
together till the tomatoes are cooked. Pass the whole 
through a sieve, so that the sauce may be quite smooth. 
Boil the spaghetti separately till quite tender, then drain 
off the water, and mix with the tomato sauce. If cheese 
is liked, mix in some grated Parmesan the last thing 
before serving ; also a little fresh butter, which can be 
added without the cheese, if preferred. 

Italian Way of Dressing* a Cabbage with a Hard 
Heart. — Plunge the cabbage into boiling water. Take 
out the heart, cut it into ribbons. Mix with it bacon, 
chopped meat or game, onion, garlic, parsley, [herbs, 
and, above all, some Gruyere and Parmesan cheese — in 
fact, almost anything. Bind this mixture with egg. 
Replace it in the cabbage, and tie it up well to prevent 
the stuffing from escaping. Boil fast till done. Serve 
with brown or white sauce, or butter only. 

Another Risotto a la Milanaise.— Italian rice is 
the best of all, though rather difficult to get. It is dif- 
ferent from either Carolina or Pata. Failing it, boil 
half a pound of best Carolina rice. When it is about 



MAY 313 

half cooked, drain it off and replace it in the stew- 
pan. Add a good quarter of a pound of butter, stand 
it on the side of the stove, allow it to fry gently till the 
rice is quite done, stirring very frequently to prevent 
burning, which it will do unless constant attention is 
given. Then mix about half a pint of good demie glaze 
de volatile, or, if that should not be convenient, a little 
ordinary half -glaze. Add about a quarter of a pound 
of grated Parmesan, some tongue cut to size of a shil- 
ling, and about four or five truffles cut in slices, also bits 
of chicken the size of a shilling. Season to taste, and 
serve very hot in a silver souffle -dish, with a very little 
Parmesan grated over the top. It is an improvement, 
as a change with risotto, to press it into a round basin 
and turn it out before serving. 

A very good way of cooking young potatoes is to put 
them into a black frying-pan, whole, in hot butter. 
Cover them up, and let them cook for an hour. This 
does very well for small old potatoes also. 

Avery creamy pur4e of potatoes (see 'Dainty Dishes') , 
put into scallop-shells and browned in the oven, handed 
round with roast mutton, is rather a pretty change. 

Fresh summer spinach, plain boiled and chopped (not 
too fine), and rolled in the middle of a large pancake, is 
excellent. 

A good puree of sorrel (see 'Dainty Dishes'), with 
small asparagus cut up into little pieces, is an. excellent 
May or June dish. 

Asparagus Salad. — Thin boiled asparagus, cut up 
into short lengths (pointes d'asperges) and mixed with 
oil and lemon-juice, makes a nice salad. It is much 
improved by the addition of an apple ( ' New Zealand ' ) 
peeled and cut up into thin Julienne shreds. 

When apples get scarce and tasteless in the spring, a 
very good 'charlotte 7 can be made in exactly the same 



314 MORE POT-POURRI 

way as 'apple charlotte' (see Dainty Dishes') by making 
a smooth puree from stewed sun-dried apricots, to h 
had of all London grocers and stores. 

A good cookery book is called 'A Younger Son i 
Cookery Book, by a Younger Son's daughter' (Richau 
Bentley & Son) . 

May 22nd— When I made up my mind last year t< 
go to Florence, I thought I would try and collect a fei 
appropriate books to enlighten my ignorance and refresl 
my memory. I asked my friends what I should take 
merely reminding them that Mr. Hare's volumes on ItaJ 
and George Eliot's 'Romola' had naturally occurred t] 
myself. I got very little help before I went ; but b] 
degrees, during the month I was in Florence and sin J 
my return, I have collected and read several books whicl 
I should have been glad to have had last year, and 
which may help those who go straight from a busy hoiD 
life and take a short trip to Florence. Of course, thi 
literature on Florence is so enormous, and people's tast< 
in books differs so greatly, that to write a mere list ( 
names would enlighten no one. I shall only mentio. 
those books which I either possess or have had lent t: 
me to read ; and if I describe them a little in detail, 
think it may help the inexperienced to make a selectio 
of those which they themselves would enjoy. At Florenc 
there is a most excellent lending library ; in fact, prol 
ably more than one. 

As an example of 'art ' teaching at the end of the las 
century, there is now a cheap edition of Sir Joshu 
Reynolds' 'Discourses,' which are full of wisdom an 
general instruction. He shares with the greatest - 
Michael Angelo especially— the misfortune that thos 
who came after him degenerated, which seemed at on 
time to justify the condemnation of his teaching. He 
is a sentence from one of his ' Discourses ' which com 



MAY 315 

home to me as a reason why, instead of giving my own 
superficial opinions, I try to help others by recommend- 
ing books which I think will greatly add to their enjoy- 
ment of a visit to Florence : 

' The great business of study is to form a mind 
adapted and adequate to all times and all occasions ; to 
which all nature is then laid open, and which may be 
said to possess the key of her inexhaustible riches. 

'A detail of instruction might be extended with a 
great deal of pleasure and ostentatious amplification ; 
but it would at best be useless. Our studies will be for 
ever in a very great degree under the direction of chance. 
Like travellers, we must take what we can get and when 
we can get it, whether it is or is not administered in the 
most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or 
at the exact minute when we would wish to have it. 

' The habit of contemplating and brooding over the 
ideas of great geniuses, till you find yourself warmed by 
the contact, is the true method of forming an artist -like 
mind. It is impossible to think or invent in a mean 
manner ; a state of mind is acquired that receives those 
ideas only which relish of grandeur and simplicity. 

' I do not desire that you should get other people to 
do your business, or to think for you. I only wish you 
to consult with, to call in as councillors, men the most 
distinguished for their knowledge and experience, the 
result of which counsel must ultimately depend upon 
yourself. Such conduct in the commerce of life has 
never been considered as disgraceful, or in any respect 
imply intellectual imbecility ; it is a sign rather of that 
true wisdom which feels individual imperfection, and is 
conscious to itself how much collective observation is 
necessary to fill the immense extent and to comprehend 
the infinite variety of nature. I recommend neither self- 
dependence nor plagiarism. I advise you only to take 



316 MORE POT-POURRI 

that assistance which every human being wants, and 
which it appears, from the examples that have been 
given, the greatest painters have not disdained to 
accept. 

' Let me add, the diligence required in the search, and 
the exertion subsequent in accommodating those ideas 
to your own purpose, is a business which idleness will 
not, and ignorance cannot, perform. Men of superior 
talents alone are capable of thus using and adapting 
other men's minds to their own purposes, or are able to 
make out and finish what was only in the original a hint 
or imperfect conception. A readiness in taking such 
hints, which escape the dull and ignorant, makes in my 
opinion no inconsiderable part of that faculty of the 
mind which is called genius.' 

Before I begin my list of books, I think I will say 
that there are few more useful things for young people 
to take with them to Italy than a biographical dic- 
tionary of the painters. I have two ; but they are old 
ones. I have had them all my life. Doubtless there are 
better and more modern ones now, which I have not 
taken the trouble to look up. One is Pilkington's 
' Dictionary of Painters ' by Allan Cunningham, and the 
other a ' Dictionary of Italian Painters ' by Maria 
Farquhar, edited by R. M. Wornham. This is a dear 
little book published in 1855, and light and portable, 
but probably long out of print. In studying art, 
nothing is more necessary than to know — not only the 
chronology of the pictures themselves, but also to a 
certain degree the evolution of the minds of the men 
who painted them. This we can partly arrive at by the 
dates of their births and deaths. The galleries, as a 
rule, are not arranged to help one much, though many 
pictures now have dates on their frames. Still, it 
requires a peculiar head — certainly, I think, one not 



MAY 317 

possessed by most women — to arrange these dates of 
the painters' lives, overlapping each other as they do, 
on the spur of the moment, in a way that is of the 
smallest use for judging the merits of the pictures, and, 
above all, the mind of the man that shines through his 
work. 

One should know the date of a picture, as in biogra- 
phy everything depends upon the age at which incidents 
occur. Men of genius often do at twenty what is usu- 
ally not done at forty ; so every now and then a painter 
anticipates by centuries the thought or the execution of 
future ages. 

In accordance with the taste of her day, Maria 
Farquhar gives five double -columned pages of her little 
book to Raphael, and half a single column to Botticelli. 
In this she did not differ from her contemporaries, for, 
as Mr. Hewlett says in ' Earthwork out of Tuscany ' : 
I Seriously, where in criticism do you learn of an earlier 
painter than Perugino until you come to our day ? And 
where now do you get the raptures over the Carracci and 
Domenichino, and Guercino, and the rest of them, which 
the last century expended upon their unthrifty soil ? 
Ruskin found Botticelli ; yes, and Giotto. Roscoe never 
so much as mentions either.' 

I have four little daintily printed volumes published 
in 1834 — an early work of the well-known authoress, 
Mrs. Jameson, who has written so much on Italian art. 
These books are not without interest to the student of 
life, art, or art criticisms. The last two volumes are a 
reprint of a still earlier work, which had a success in its 
day, called 'The Diary of an Ennuyee.' The book is 
still interesting to me, not only for its demodee style, 
but also as being a kind of 'Pot-Pourri' of the day. 
This ' Diary of an Ennuyee ' contains an account of the 
author's stay at Florence, which is my reason for 



318 MORE POT-POURRI 

i * ■■ • ' 

mentioning the book here. Her reflections are young 
and genuine, and the courage with which she lays them 
down gives them a human interest. I feel considerable 
sympathy with what she says about Michael Angelo. 
She thus speaks of the Medici statues : 'In a little 
chapel in San Lorenzo are Michael Angelo' s famous 
statues- — the Morning, the Noon, the Evening, and the 
Night. I looked at them with admiration rather than 
with pleasure ; for there is something in the severe and 
overpowering style of this master which affects me dis- 
agreeably, as beyond my feeling and above my 
comprehension. These statues are very ill-disposed 
for effect ; the confined cell (such it seems) in which 
they are placed is so strangely disproportioned to the 
awful and massive grandeur of their forms. 

' There is a picture by Michael Angelo, considered a 
chef-cVmivre,, which hangs in the Tribune to the right 
of the Venus. Now, if all the connoisseurs, with Vasari 
at their head, were to harangue for an hour together on 
the merits of this picture, I might submit in silence, for 
I am no connoisseur ; but that it is a disagreeable, a 
hateful picture, is an opinion which fire could not melt 
out of me. .In spite of Messieurs les Connoisseurs and 
Michael Angelo 's fame, I would die in it at the stake. 
For instance, here is the Blessed Virgin — not the 
"Vergine Santa d'ogni grazia piena," but a Virgin 
whose brickdust- coloured face, harsh, unfeminine 
features, and muscular, masculine arms give me the idea 
of a washerwoman {con rispetto parlando!) — an infant 
Saviour with the proportions of a giant ! And what 
shall we say of the nudity of the figures in the back- 
ground? — profaning the subject and shocking at once 
good taste and good sense. A little further on the eye 
rests on the divine Madre di Dio of Correggio. What 
beauty, what sweetness, what miiternal love and humble 



MAY 3l9 

adoration are blended in the look and attitude with 
which she bends over her Infant ! ' 

Just as a contrast to this bald dislike of Michael 
Angelo, which I more or less share, I will copy, as an 
example of modern subtle scholarly criticism, a sentence 
on the same picture from Pater's 'Renaissance'— a 
book to be read indeed : 

' When the shipload of sacred earth from the soil of 
Jerusalem was mingled with the common clay in the 
Campo Santo at Pisa, a new flower grew up from it 
unlike any flower men had seen before— the Anemone,' 
with its concentric rings of strangely blended colour,' 
still to be found by those who search long enough for it 
in the long grass of the Maremma. Just such a strange 
flower was that mythology of the Italian Renaissance 
which grew up from the mixture of two traditions, two 
sentiments — the sacred and the profane. Classical 
story was regarded as so much imaginative material to 
be received and assimilated. It did not come into men's 
minds to ask curiously of science concerning the origin 
of such story, its primary form and import, its meaning 
for those who projected it. The thing sank into their 
minds, to issue forth again with all the tangle about it 
of mediasval sentiment and ideas. 

'In the Doni Madonna in the Tribune of the Uffizi, 
Michael Angelo actually brings the pagan religion, and 
with it the unveiled human form, the sleepy -looking 
fauns of a Dionysiac revel, into the presence of the Ma- 
donna, as simpler painters had introduced there other 
products of the earth, birds or flowers ; while he has 
given to that Madonna herself much of the uncouth 
energy of the older and more primitive ' ' Mightv 
Mother.'" 

Is it possible to see side by side more different criti- 
cisms of the same picture ? And it is not only the dif- 



3 2o MORE POT-POURRI 

ference of a young woman and a scholarly man ; it 
means the immense march the world has made altogether 
in the understanding of its own evolution. 

To return to Mrs. Jameson. She runs on with her 
criticisms through the sights of Florence. Most of the 
pictures she admires are certainly not those that excite 
the greatest admiration in these days. The name Botti- 
celli is never once mentioned by her, any more than it is 
thirty years later by George Eliot in her notes on Floren- 
tine art in the diary published in her Life. Pater, on 
the contrary, tells us that Sandro Botticelli is the only 
contemporary mentioned, whether by accident or inten- 
tion, by Leonardo in his treatise on painting. 

I only possess the translation of this treatise pub- 
lished in 1835. Just lately a new 'Life and Works' of 
Leonardo, by Eugene Muntz, has been published by 
Heinemann, but it is 42s. net. 

To leave high things for low, Mrs. Jameson touches 
on the society of the day at Florence and parties at the 
Countess of Albany's, etc. She gives an amusing story 
of a travelling young lord who, when presented with the 
Countess of Albany's card, exclaimed : 

' The Countess of Albany ! Ah ! — true — I remember! 
Wasn't she the widow of Charles the Second who mar- 
ried Ariosto ? ' There is in this celebrated bSvue a 
glorious confusion of times and persons. 

For those interested in the byways of history, a well- 
known modern author, Vernon Lee, has written a ' Life' 
of this Countess of Albany. I think it the most inter- 
esting of Vernon Lee's books that I have read. It was 
published in the ' Eminent Women' series — why, I can- 
not imagine ; for it seems to me as incongruous as Haw- 
thorne's ' Life ' being in the ' English Men of Letters,' or 
Lady Hamilton's picture having a place in the National 
Portrait Gallery. 



MAY 321 

Vernon Lee's ' Studies of the Eighteenth Century in 
Italy' I have not read ; but if they are half as interest- 
ing as this 'Life,' I have something to look forward to. 
The pictures of even a portion of society in Florence 
drawn in this 'Life' of the Countess of Albany set one 
wondering how a hundred years can have brought about 
such changes. Vernon Lee's later works, mostly about 
Italy, 'Limbo and Other Essays' and 'Genius Loci,' 
there seems no need for me to praise ; they have been so 
recently in the reading public's mind, and so much 
appreciated. 

It seems to me very clearing to the mind to read 
French or German criticisms at the same time as Eng- 
lish, especially with regard to Italy, as at all times the 
French, of whom I know most, take such an absolutely 
different point of view. 'L'ltalie d'Hier,' by the broth- 
ers De Goncourt, written in the winter of 1855-56, is 
entirely devoid of what we should call 'the feeling for 
Italy.' To read this description of Italy is very like 
taking up a book illustrating the contents of the first 
Exhibition of 1851, when all sense of the beautiful 
seemed absolutely lost. Georges Sand, in her youthful 
bitterness, exclaimed, in the 'thirties, that Italy was 
' Peintures aux plafonds, ordure sous les pieds' ; but 
that criticism is again of a totally different kind. Ed- 
mond de Goncourt looks at a picture and says : ' La 
Vierge chez ce peintre, c'est la Vierge du Vinci, mais 
avec une expression courtisanesque.' The drawings by 
one of the brothers in this book are rather clever, and 
in describing a ball at the Pitti, in the Grand Duke's 
time, he gives an absurd caricature of our English Min- 
ister of the day, Lord Normanby, which no one who 
remembers him can read now without a smile. The 
book is well worth looking at as typical of French 
criticism of that day, and anybody who cares to enjoy a 



322 MORE POT-POURRI 

strong literary contrast has only to take up afterwards 
Paul Bourget's 'Sensations d'ltalie' (published in 1891, 
and dedicated to Robert Lord Lytton by his aff ectionate 
friend and admirer) and his most daintily illustrated 
little gem called 'Un Saint/ published in 1894. Here 
the forty years have indeed altered sentiment, feeling, 
aspiration, and description. Both are French ; I prefer 
the Bourget. 

The famous 'Voyage en Italie' by H. Taine (1866) 
is literature of a much more serious kind. It is descrip- 
tive rather than critical in the modern sense, and the 
chapter ' La Peinture Florentine' should be read by any- 
one seriously interested in the Florence galleries. It 
contains an enlightened sentence on the famous Venus 
de' Medici, forcing one to remember — what so many for- 
get — that the arms were a restoration by Bernini, and 
are very likely the cause of much that fails to please in 
this statue. What he says of the galleries are only 
slight sketches, but these are by the hand of a master. 
The end of the second volume is Venice ; the first vol- 
ume is Rome. 

'The Makers of Florence, 7 by Mrs. Oliphant, is a 
most helpful book and one of her best. It should be 
read, I think, before the more detailed ' Life and Times 
of Savonarola,' by Professor Pasquale Villari, as the mind 
then will be in a more receptive condition for absorbing 
the greater detail of the larger book. It is almost in- 
conceivable that Savonarola's skull formation should 
have been as low as it is represented in the portrait re- 
produced in this book of Mrs. Oliphant' s, with the head 
covered with his Dominican cowl. 

' The Life and Times of Savonarola' by Villari, trans- 
lated as it is into English by his wife, has been lately 
republished in a cheap edition by Fisher Unwin. 

Signora Villari has also written a pretty little book 



MAY 323 

of her own, called 'On Tuscan Hills and Venetian 
Waters.' 

I have long had that amusing classic, the ' Memoirs 
of Benvenuto Cellini ' by himself, translated by Thomas 
Roscoe (1823), on the title-page of which is a saying of 
Horace Walpole's : ' Cellini was one of the most extra- 
ordinary men of an extraordinary age. His Life, writ- 
ten by himself, is more amusing than any novel I know.' 
This book was again translated into English by John 
Addington Symonds, and published in 1888. It is 
pleasanter reading than Roscoe's, but the engraved por- 
trait in the old book is infinitely better than in the new. 

I found Symonds' ' Life of Michael Angelo' a book 
of rare interest. Symonds is often criticised for inaccu- 
racy of detail. The same accusation is always brought 
against Froude ; but both writers have a power of pop- 
ularising information which, joined to their gift for 
vivid description, make one live in the past, in spite of 
the atmosphere of modern thought through which they 
present it. 

Symonds' 'Italian Sketches,' which are so conven- 
iently published in the Tauchnitz edition, speak of many 
things in a charming way, but do not actually touch on 
Florence itself. 

Amongst the books I have been reading none seem 
to me more remarkable or stamped with a stronger 
or more interesting individuality than Walter Pater's. 
His 'Renaissance,' which he calls 'Studies in Art and 
Poetry,' and ' Marius the Epicurean,' with its vivid word- 
painting and its pictures of old Italy, so unchanged 
even to-day, are books which must be immensely admired 
by those who read them, or not liked at all. They are 
certainly not light reading, and more fitted for the study 
than the railway carriage ; but they are books which I 
believe will live in English literature when many of the 



324 MORE POT-POURRI 

productions of this period will have passed into the un- 
known. They are full of study, thought, and knowledge, 
and it is not only a knack of beautiful writing which is 
their chief attraction and merit. 

Many years ago two old ladies, Susan and Joanna 
Homer, lived in Florence, and wrote one of the first and 
the most satisfactory of the detailed guide-books I have 
ever seen, called ' Walks in Florence.' An interesting 
new French book by A. Geffroy, called ' Etudes Itali- 
ennes,' published in 1898, I thought worth reading, as it 
gives another historical view of the Renaissance ; Art 
being only indirectly alluded to. The chapters are on 
'Les Grands Medicis,' 'Savonarola,' 'Guichardin.' He 
quotes of 'Laurent,' 'Ce refrain reste populaire qui 
resonne encore comme un echo lointain et gracieux de 
la Renaissance ! 

Quanto e bella giovinezza 
Che si fugge tuttavia ! 
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia, 
Di doman non e' e certezza.' 

The second part of the book is called ' Rome Monu- 
mentale.' In this there is a chapter on ' La legende de la 
Cenci,' in- which he also sweeps away the whole story. 

Only last summer a book appeared called ' Tuscan 
Artists, their Thought and Work,' by Hope Rea. Sir 
W. B. Richmond writes the preface, and says : ' I desire 
success to this little volume, so interesting, so full of 
sympathy with those various emotions whose expression 
in all forms of art has made Italy their foster mother.' 

A book has just been sent me, called ' Stray Studies 
from England and Italy,' by John Richard Green, the 
author of the famous 'Short History.' The title is not 
quite correct, as there is an excellent chapter or two on 
the south of France, and an exceedingly interesting his- 
torical paper on the home of our Angevin kings, which 



MAY 325 

was also the home of the Renaissance in France ; and it 
has a still earlier interest for the modern English tourist 
who rides through Touraine by the Loire to Saumur, for 
as Mr. Green says, ' Nothing clears one's ideas about the 
character of the Angevin rule, the rule of Henry II., or 
Richard or John, so thoroughly as a stroll through 
Anjou.' Another charming chapter is ' The Florence of 
Dante.' In fact, I have most thoroughly enjoyed this 
little gem of desultory information. 

For serious modern criticism of Italian painters and 
their work, I have found nothing that has interested me 
so much and which seems to me so new as Mr. Bernhard 
Berenson's three little volumes — ' The Venetian Painters 
of the Renaissance,' 'The Florentine Painters of the 
Renaissance,' and 'The Central Italian Painters of the 
Renaissance.' The author evidently aims at represent- 
ing the modern scientific school of art criticism, started, 
as far as I know, by Giovanni Morelli. The indexes at 
the end of each volume will be found valuable, though 
many of Mr. Berenson's conclusions will be cavilled at ; 
and his attributions of pictures, differing, as they do, 
from the official catalogues, raise much antagonism. 

Where doctors differ, the public may be amused, and 
art critics of the future must worry out their various 
opinions. 

'Italian Literature,' by Richard Garnett, is one of 
those books for which the public ought to feel grateful, 
as it condenses an incredible amount of labour and 
study into a very small, convenient volume. It brings 
us down to the present day, D'Annunzio's novels, etc. 

In 1897 Mr. John Morley published one of his bril- 
liant lectures, delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, on 
Machiavelli. He begins by a reference to Dante's liken- 
ing of worldly fame to the breath of the wind, that 
blows now one way, now another, and changes name as 



326 MORE POT-POURRI 

it changes quarter. He says of Machiavelli : ' In our 
age, when we think of the chequered course of human 
time, of the shocks of irreconcilable civilisations, of war, 
trade, faction, revolution, empire, laws, creeds, sects, we 
seek a clue to the vast maze of historic and prehistoric 
fact. Machiavelli seeks no clue to his distribution of 
good and evil. He never tries to find a moral interpre- 
tation for the mysterious scroll. We obey laws that we 
do not know, but cannot resist. We can only make an 
effort to seize events as they whirl by, and to extort 
from them a maxim, a precept, or a principle, to serve 
our immediate turn. Fortune, he says — that is, Provi- 
dence, or else circumstances, or the stars — is mistress of 
more than half we do. What is her deep secret, he 
shows no curiosity to fathom. He contents himself 
with a maxim for the practical man (" Prince," xxv.), 
that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, for 
Fortune is a woman and, to be mastered, must be boldly 
handled.' 

Mr. Morley's defence of Machiavelli is on the lines of 
his concluding words : ' It is true to say that Machiavelli 
represents certain living forces in our actual world; that 
science, with its survival of the fittest, unconsciously 
lends him illegitimate aid ; that "he is not a vanishing 
type, but a constant and 'contemporary influence." This 
is because energy, force, will, violence, still keep alive in 
the world their resistance to the control of justice and 
conscience, humanity and right. In so far as he repre- 
sents one side in that eternal struggle, and suggests one 
set of considerations about it, he retains a place in the 
literature of modern political systems and European 
morals.' 

I wind up by taking from my list of books that were 
recommended to me a few I have not yet had time to 
read: 'Christ's Folk in the Apennine,' by Miss Alex- 



MAY 327 

ander ; 'Roadside Songs of Tuscany,' by the same; 'A 
Nook in the Apennines,' by Leader Scott; 'Italian 
Sketches,' by Mrs. Ross; 'Histoire des Medicis,' by 
Dumas ; ' Une Annee a Florence : Impressions de Voy- 
age,' by Dumas ; 'Italian Commonwealth, or Common- 
wealth of Florence,' by Trollope. 

Last year, on May 26th, I left my Surrey garden for 
three months. The account of this time I had abroad 
and the return in August will bring my year to its 
conclusion. 

My spring gardening was spoilt by the feeling that 
the buds I had watched so carefully would be seen in 
flower by others and not by myself ; and there is no 
denying I left home with a considerable wrench. The 
garden looked very full, but green and flowerless ; only 
one or two large Oriental Poppies were out. I do not 
know why, but I travelled by night to Paris, resting 
some hours in an hotel in order to go through by the 
Cenis train, arriving at Florence early in the evening 
instead of in the middle of the night. I might just as 
well have slept in Paris ; it would have cost no more 
than the six hours' rest. I started from there to travel 
alone, for the first time in my life. 

I did not want to feel sad or lonely, which would 
have been foolish, as I was deliberately going to please 
myself ; and I could not help smiling as I thought over 
a sentence in the journal of Marie Bashkirtseff, and 
what she says about travelling with one's family : ' Je 
comprend qu'on soit heureux de vivre en famille, et je 
serais malheureuse seule. On peut aller faire des achats 
en famille, aller au Bois en famille, quelquefois au 
Theatre. On peut 6tre malade en famille, faire des 
cures en famille, enfin tout ce qui est de la vie intime et 
des choses necessaires ; mais voyager en famille ! ! ! 
C'est comme si on prenait plaisir a valser avec sa tante. 



328 MORE POT-POURRI 

C'est ennuyeux mortellement, et raeme quelque peu 
ridicule.' 

Railway travelling is always such a joy to me. I 
never know which I like best — looking out of the win- 
dow, or feeling that I can read in peace without the 
disturbances which are perpetually occurring elsewhere. 
Going through France, I am always struck afresh by 
the thinly populated look of the country, except just 
near the towns. 

I had in my travelling bag a cutting from the ' Daily 
Telegraph ' of January 5th, 1898 : Mr. Gladstone's 
account of Hallam, — a remarkably interesting paper, 
one of those rare gifts sometimes bestowed upon us by 
the daily press. It must have been almost the last, if 
not quite the last, thing of any importance the old man 
ever wrote. 

Has it ever been explained why the recollections of 
youth are so engraven on the brain and flash out in old 
age with such vivid clearness "? Educated and unedu- 
cated, clever and stupid, all seem to share the same 
experience. The dullest of old people are interesting if 
allowed to talk of their youth and themselves. The only 
drawback is that they enjoy repeating over and over 
again what they remember. Gladstone's half-jealous 
criticism of Hallam spending eight months in Italy 
between Eton and Cambridge includes so excellent a 
description of travelling in the days that are gone that 
it haunted me as I flew and rushed in my express in one 
bound from Paris to Florence : 

' The agencies of locomotion have, within the last 
seventy years, been not only multiplied, but trans- 
formed. We then crept into and about countries ; we 
now fly through them. When Arthur Hallam went with 
his family to Italy, there was not so much as a guide- 
book. It was shortly afterwards Mrs. Starke, under the 



MAY 329 

auspices of Murray, founded that branch of literature, 
and within the compass of one very moderate volume 
expounded in every particular the whole continent of 
Europe. But this is only the outside of the case. A 
visit to Italy was then the summit of a young man's 
aspirations ; it now supplies some half-dozen rapid 
stages in larger tours, where we run much risk of losing 
in discipline and mental stimulus what we gain in mile- 
age. When it took sixteen or eighteen days to post to 
Rome, each change of horses was an event. The young 
traveller could not but try to make the most of what he 
had bought so dear. Scene, history, and language now 
flash before the eye ; then they soaked into the soul. 
Men were then steeped in the experiences of Italy ; they 
are now sprinkled with the spray. Its scenery, its art, 
its language, which was a delight and luxury to learn ; 
its splendid literature ; its roll of great men, among 
whom Dante himself might serve to build up the entire 
fame of a nation ; and its place in history, which alone 
connects together the great stages of human civilisation 
— all these constituted a many-sided power which was 
brought to bear almost in a moment on the mind of 
Arthur Hallam. I knew it, for I suffered by it. The 
interval between his progress and my own, always long, 
became such that there was no joining hands across it. 
I was plodding on the beaten and dusty path, while 
he was 

Where the lost lark wildly sings, 
Hard by the sun.' 

Everyone takes with him to Florence Mr. Hare's 
'Cities of Central Italy.' In his introduction to the 
'Cities of Northern Italy,' he puts it well as regards the 
changes that have in my life -time come over travelling. 
I can remember things as he describes them : 



330 MORE POT-POURRI 

' The old days of Italian travel are beginning to pass 
out of recollection — the happy old days, when, with 
slow -trotting horses and jangling bells, we lived for 
weeks in our vetturino carriage as in a house, and made 
ourselves thoroughly comfortable there ; halting at mid- 
day for luncheon, with pleasant hours for wandering 
over unknown towns and gathering flowers and making 
discoveries in the churches and convents near our 
resting-place. All that we then saw remains impressed 
on our recollection as a series of beautiful pictures set 
in a framework of the homelike associations of a quiet 
life, which was gilded by all that Italian loveliness alone 
can bestow of its own tender beauty. The slow 
approach to each long -heard -of but unseen city — 
gradually leading up, as the surrroundings of all cities 
do, to its own peculiar characteristics — gave a very 
different feeling towards it from that which is produced 
by rushing into a railway station.' 

This is all perfectly true ; but when we think that 
hundreds can now see and enjoy the great cities of Italy, 
which in old days was only the privilege of the idle, the 
rich, and the few, we can without regret give up the 
more romantic methods of travelling of bygone days. 

The only book I had with me, given me before I left 
for Florence, was called 'Earthwork out of Tuscany,' 
being ' impressions and translations ' of Maurice Hew- 
lett (J. M. Dent & Co., 1895). It describes Florence, 
not as I saw it, but in autumn and early winter, the 
usual tourist time. It is very modern in tone, and 
although slightly affected, yet the enthusiasm and 
delight in Italy are as great as, or even greater than, 
those of writers of a past generation. His preface, 
which he calls ' Proem,' is an apologia for writing at all 
on such well-known ground, for he feels his book must 
risk the charge of being ' a r&chaufft of Paul Bourget 



MAY 331 

and Walter Pater with ana lightly culled from Symonds, 
and perchance the questionable support of ponderous 
references out of Burckhardt.' My journey was short- 
ened for me by the pleasure I got from reading this 
book, and it made me feel glad, as I sat in the train, 
that I was on my way to this Italy of undying interest. 

I had, of course, the usual luggage scare at the 
Custom House at Modane in the middle of the night. I 
was idiotic from sleep, and the officials declared my 
boxes were not in the train. I felt like the French cab- 
man with a heavy load when a passing friend asked him 
how he was. ' Pour moi, je suis plonge dans la misere 
jusqu'au cou.' Just as the train was starting, to my 
intense relief I spied my boxes, and could once more 
complacently smile and remember a nice little story I 
had just been told. An American lady, having lost all 
her luggage, said : 'Any great trial sent by the 
Almighty I can bear, but these collateral smacks are too 
much for anyone to endure.' How true it is ! 

One of the drawbacks of the facility of modern travel 
is that it enables people who have a short holiday — 
say, of three weeks — to rush through Italy from place 
to place. Disappointed with the climate, they imagine 
sunshine is to be found further on. I heard a young 
man, who spent his three weeks at Rome, Florence and 
Venice, say that he had ' done that tour, and that Flor- 
ence was the vilest climate on the face of God's earth.' 
Whereas a great deal more pleasure is to be had, and 
one gains a much more lasting impression, by going 
straight from home and spending the whole time in 
one place. 

Everyone warned me so much against the heat I 
should find in Italy in June. But I began my disap- 
pointment by finding the Alps all cloud and rain, and, 
in spite of its being the last days of May, the weather 



33 2 



MORE POT-POURRI 



was quite cold. At Turin the sky was as inky black as 
in London. The torrents were bursting, and the roads 
floating with water over black mud. As we got near 
Genoa, of which absolutely nothing can be seen from 
the railway, it was like a gray July day at home, the 
hay cut and the Acacias in flower. 

The journey along the seashore is a most irritating 
series of tunnels. When I arrived at Florence, all lone- 
liness was at an end. Kind friends met me, and we 
drove through the town, which I had not visited, except 
for one night, since I was twenty. In the gray, damp 
drizzle it did not look its best, but no weather can spoil 
the majestic appearance of the Ilex and Cypress avenue 
outside the Roman gate — the approach to what was 
once a Medicean villa. Through this we had to drive to 
reach the village of Arcetri, where my journey ended. 

The joy of being once more in Italy was, indeed, 
great ; my pension close — to the Torre del Gallo — was 
a large, fine house, quite empty. All the upper floor was 
my own, and I could roam from room to room and enjoy 
the most beautiful views conceivable. The whole country 
is like a gigantic rockwork — hill and vale and sloping 
sides and varied aspects, and all that can be imagined as 
perfect for the growth of vegetation. I was rather dis- 
appointed at the excessive greenness of everything on 
my arrival. Even the Olives, in spite of the green corn 
underneath them, looked green — not gray — from the 
masses of small yellow flowers that covered them. One 
cannot look at all this redundant vegetation without 
realising that Florence must be blessed with an abun- 
dant rainfall. 

They talk here of the probability of a wet ' San Gio- 
vanni' as we talk of ' St. Swithin ' — meaning, of course, 
there is generally much wet about that time. 

The Italian papers were naturally full of Mr. Glad- 



MAY 



333 



stone's recent death, and one of them published his 
translation of Cowper's hymn, 'Hark, my soul,' which 
seems already, at the end of a year, almost a literary 
curiosity : 

Senti, senti, anima mia 
(Fu il Signor che sentia) 
Gresu parla e parla a te : 
' Di, figliuolo, ami Me ? ' 

' Te legato svincolai, 
Le tue piaghe risanai, 
Fuorviato rimenai, 
Notte e di per te mutai.' 

' Vien la madre a quando a quando 
II suo parto obliando ? 
Donna il pub, non posso Io, 
Mai non viene in Me 1' obblio.' 

' L ' amor Mio sempre dura, 
Alto piu d' ogni altra altura, 
Tocca gia le nere porte, 
Franco e fido, in fino a morte. 

' Tu la gloria Mia vedrai, 
Se le piene grazie avrai, 
Te del trono meno al pie ; 
Di, figliuolo, ami Me ? ' 

1 Ah, Signor, mi duole il core 
Pel mio stanco e fiaeco amore, 
T' amo pure, e vo' pregare 
Che ti possa meglio amare. 

My food in my out-of-town pension, as I had it all to 
myself, consisted of vegetables, macaroni, rice, Alpine 
strawberries, etc. I learnt the secret of the delicious 
little vegetable they call 'Zucche,' which I had often 
heard of. It is called in the English Vilmorin vegetable 
book Italian Vegetable Marrow, 'an extremely distinct 



334 MORE POT-POURRI 

variety, stems not running very thick, and short. The 
luxuriant foliage forms a regular bush. All through 
Italy, where this gourd is very commonly grown, the 
fruit is eaten quite young, just before the faded flower 
drops off. The plants, deprived of their undeveloped 
fruits, continue to flower for several months most pro- 
fusely, each producing a great number of young gourds, 
which, gathered in that state, are exceedingly tender 
and delicately flavoured.' ' This should be tried in Eng- 
land,' adds Mr. Robinson. The same excellent way of 
gathering them quite young might, I think, be adopted 
for other gourds and Vegetable Marrows. 



JUNE 

What I saw from my window at Arcetri — Fireflies — Cypresses — 
Youthful memories in the ' Cascine ' — Deodar in cloister of 
San Marco — Fete at Santa Margharita — Villas — Gardens — 
Want of colour in Tuscany at midsummer — Slight allusion 
to picture galleries — The Cabinet of Cardinal Leopoldo de' 
Medici — June 24th in Florence — Botanical Garden — Silence 
of birds and summer sounds. 

June 1st. — I alluded in May to a book called ' Earth- 
work out of Tuscany.' The introductory chapter con- 
tains the following passage, which comes home to me most 
strongly, as I begin to write a few notes about my visit 
to Florence: 'Has any city, save perhaps Cairo, been 
so written out as Florence ? . . . . Florence has often 
been sketched before — putting Browning aside, with his 
astounding fresco music — by Ruskin and George Eliot 
and Mr. Henry James, to name only masters. But that 
is no reason why I should not try my 'prentice hand. 
Florence alters not at all ; men do. My picture, poor as 
you like, shall be my own.' I, too, can only, in great 
humility, beg you to accept this little account of my 
June near Florence, ' not as what I would fain offer, but 
what I am able to present.' 

June 2nd. — The weather is getting finer and warmer, 
and I am more and more delighted with my large, empty 
house and with the views all round. A more perfect 
spot could not be found even here. The actual town I 
cannot see ; it is hidden by the undulating ground that 
rises behind San Miniato, ending in the Torre del Gallo, 
close to the villa where Galileo was exiled, when blind 

(335) 



336 MORE POT-POURRI 

and old, to die. Tradition says that he worked from the 
top of this tower. I wonder whether he did, or whether 
Milton was right in saying that he studied the moon 
from the top of Fiesole. Milton only saw Galileo on his 
second visit to Florence, as during his first visit the 
astronomer was kept a close prisoner by the Inquisition. 

What was really at the bottom of Galileo's persecu- 
tion ? Religious people thought it militated against the 
dignity and importance of man that this planet of his 
should go spinning round the sun — with men's hopes 
and feelings hanging on by their eyelids — instead of 
remaining quiet, in a dignified manner, while the sun 
did its duty in going round, warming and lighting, 
the earth. 

Galileo's blindness seems to have had a 'prophetic 
fascination ' for Milton, and the deep impression left by 
the sight of the Tuscan astronomer is shown by the way 
in which Milton once or twice alludes to him in 
'Paradise Lost,' not published till nearly thirty 
years later. 

Mr. Stephen Phillips' fine poem to Milton blind, 
might almost apply to Galileo : 

The hand was taken by Angels who patrol 
The evening, or are sentries to the dawn, 
Or pace the wide air everlastingly. 
Thou wast admitted to the presence, and deep 
Argument heardest and the large design 
That brings this world out of woe to bliss. 

Ouida says of Galileo's tower in ' Pascarel,' perhaps 
the most imaginative and delightful of her Italian books 
(so true to nature, and so false to human nature!): 
' The world has spoilt most of its places of pilgrimage, 
but the old star -tower is not harmed as yet where it 
stands amongst its quiet garden ways and grass -grown 
slopes, up high amongst the hills, with sounds of drip- 



JUNE 337 

ping water on its court, and wild wood flowers thrusting 
their bright heads through its stones. It is as peaceful, 
as simple, as homely, as closely girt with blossoming 
boughs and with tulip -crimsoned grapes now as then, 
when, from its roof in the still midnight of far-off time, 
its master read the secret of the stars.' 

But to Galileo at seventy and blind, I wonder what 
was the use of the old fighting tower? The sight of 
it was a ceaseless joy to me, flanked by splendid 
Cypresses, standing ochre colour against the blue, or 
dark against some ' billowy bosomed cloud ' ; and at 
evening it was 'one red tower that drinks its fill out of 
the sunset sky. 7 

This was as I looked to the east. Moving round to 
the south, the view widened and spread right up the 
valley of the Arno, where the little puff of gray smoke 
curled along the base of the hill, and showed where the 
train sped on its way to Rome, through the mountains, 
as they folded one over the other in tints of pearly gray. 
Still more south came the hill where Vallombrosa 
stands, and then a long stretch of villa -dotted low hills. 
At the end of the ridge was a little grove of pointed 
Cypresses, and the well-known favourite peasant church 
of all the country round stood out on its own little hill 
in the middle distance. Towards the west came a 
hillock crowned with a flat, white villa, cut by the 
Cypresses that surround nearly all the houses, sinking 
and swelling with Olive and Vine towards the distant 
view of the Certosa of the Val d'Arno. And so round 
to the whole beautiful broad valley running towards 
Pisa, ending in the blue shadows of the Carrara Moun- 
tains, with the top of Bellosguardo in the middle 
distance sharp and black against the gray mist of the 
plain. Evening after evening I used to try and get 
home to see the sunsets from my windows, as nowhere 



338 MORE POT-POURRI 

else were they so beautiful, and nowhere else did the 
air blow so fresh, and yet so warm, as in my home of 
the winds, the 'Pension d'Arcetri.' 

The only sadness that I know of in these southern 
summers is that the twilights are so short. I missed 
much the long, pale primrose evening skies of June, 
which at home throw up their faint northern brightness 
right into the indigo of the star skies of night, and 
almost meet Aurora at her waking. 

But the dark evenings are wanted to show the beauty 
of those wonderful fairy -like things that flit about in 
millions under the Olive trees and in the corn. I had 
never seen the fireflies since the summer I passed under 
Fiesole, when I was a little child of ten, but I had not 
forgotten them. The poetry that hangs around them is 
endless ; their natural history is prosaic. They are 
beetles. Both sexes are luminous, though that is not 
the general belief in Italy. They are nearly related to 
our glowworm. The colour of the fireflies is warmer 
and more golden than the blue light of the glowworm, 
and their beauty is enhanced and made more mysterious 
because the light comes and goes, and shows much more 
brightly at intervals. These fireflies are usually only to 
be met with in quite the south of Europe, but in fine 
hot summers they can be seen in rarer numbers as far 
north as Switzerland, and even the middle of Germany. 
The Italians call them lucciole, and associate them with 
all sorts of pretty poetical stories. Ouida says : 'One 
cannot wonder that the poets love them, and that the 
children believe them to be fairies carrying their little 
lanterns on their road to dance in the magic circle under 
the leaves in the wood. Some say they die in a day ; 
some say they live on for ages. Who shall tell ? They 
look always the same.' 

On one side of my house was a much -neglected, but 



JUNE 339 

lovely little square, walled garden with beautiful tall 
iron gates. The beds and paths, edged with stone, were 
of a simple, formal pattern, which gave great dignity to 
the weedy little wilderness ; and there were the usual 
large terracotta pots with strong, well -grown Lemon 
trees in them, the pride of the Tuscan peasant's heart. 
The flowers on them scented the air ; the peasants sell 
the pale fruit at a special price all the summer through 
in the town, as we sell glass -grown Peaches. I think 
that if we tried to grow plants of this sort of Lemon 
at home in pots or tubs, it would be far better than 
trying to grow the more delicate Oranges usually seen 
on terraces in England. I was told I should find it 
too hot, but I never did once. Indeed, at first I was 
disappointed ; it was not warm enough. But in Eng- 
land they had snow early in June. The Irises, the 
Tulips, all the wild spring flowers were over. I found 
the fields in places filled with a curious orchidaceous- 
looking plant which, terrible weed as it was, I thought 
would look beautiful as a spring pot-plant. It turned 
out to be a cruel parasitical growth, called Orobanclie 
pruinosa, which grows on the roots of the Broad Beans, 
destroying whole crops — to the ruin of bad farmers. 
It also grows on the roots of Geraniums, I am told ; 
which will be convenient in making it a pot -plant at 
home. 

My villa pension was surrounded with fine Cypresses 
of all sizes and ages. I wonder when and how they 
came to be planted round the houses ? Some say the 
peasants from all time have planted one as a kind of 
dower when a daughter was born in the house. In 
justification of this, Mr. Loudon says that Pliny tells 
several extraordinary stories about the durability of the 
wood, and that the plantations of Cypresses were cut 
down every thirteen years for poles, rafters, joists, etc., 



340 MORE POT-POURRI 

which made the wood so profitable that a plantation of 
Cypresses was thought a sufficient marriage portion for 
a daughter. Theophrastus states that it grew naturally 
in the isle of Crete, and that those who wish to have the 
Cypress flourish must procure a little of the earth from 
the isle of Cyprus for it to grow in. The early botanists 
supposed that the upright and spreading Cypresses were 
male and female of the same plant — G. liorlzontalis the 
male, G. strict a the female. This is not the case. The 
horizontal Cypress is quite a distinct species, which 
comes from the Levant. The evergreen Cypress is a 
flame -shaped, tapering, and cone -like tree. The male 
catkins are yellowish, about three inches long, and very 
numerous. The female catkins are much fewer and of 
a roundish oblong form ; but both grow on the same 
tree. I have a sentiment for Cypresses that amounts to 
a passion. All my life they have remained in my mind 
as emblems of the fairest land I have ever known. 

June 5th. — To-day being warm, I went down to 
Florence ; and dropping my companion — who had to 
call on a sick friend — I went on alone to the 'Cascine,' 
the well-known public park, which I had not seen for 
over forty years. The ghost of my youth sat beside me 
in the little shabby carriage ; and as I drove along the 
well -remembered alley, with the racecourse on the right, 
and the shaded roads where I used to ride, the past all 
came back to my mind. To the outward eye all seemed 
very much the same — a little smartened up and mod- 
ernised perhaps. As I drew up on the Piazzone, there 
was another carriage with a mother and three young 
daughters, as we used to be. It was a strange, lonely, 
sepulchral sort of feeling — that in all that gay crowd 
very few were even born when we lived in Florence and I 
used to go daily to the 'Cascine' and dance half the night 
through at balls. That winter at Florence seemed to me 



JUNE 341 

at the time to be the last of my youth, and it altered 
all my life. 

How strange are the depressions of youth ! Life 
seems over when really it has scarce begun ! It was in 
such a mood I left Florence at twenty. De Musset 
has expressed this sadness of youth with concentrated 
pathos : 

J'ai perdu ma force et ma vie 

Et mes amis et ma gaiete' ; 

J'ai perdu jusqu'a, la fierte' 
Qui faisait eroire a mon genie. 

Quand j'ai coimu la vSrite' 

J'ai cru que c'6tait une amie; 

Quand je l'ai comprise et sentie 
J 'en 6tais d6ja dego£U6. 

Et pourtant elle est 6ternelle, 
Et ceux qui se sont pass6 d'elle 
Ici bas ont tout ignore. 

Dieu parle, il faut qu'on lui r^ponde, 
Le seul bien qui me reste au monde 
Est d'avoir quelquefois pleure\ 

As I drove back into Florence the air was heavj r with 
the perfume of the Lime trees — such Lime trees as I 
have never seen before. The leaves are few and small, 
and were absolutely hid by the size and number of the 
yellow flowers, with their big sheaths on each side like 
wings. The evening sky was reflected in the Arno in the 
old, familiar way, and the air was warm and still. I 
called for my friend, and once more shut up the memory 
of the past in that far-away corner of the brain where 
such things remain. We drove through the town, and I 
first saw the Duomo with its facade completed. In my 
day, of course, it was rough bricks, with the holes for the 
scaffolding left in it. Beautifully as it is done, and I do 



342 MORE POT-POURRI 

think it is a noble piece of restoration, the new facade 
at first gave me a shock. It seemed to cheapen Giotto's 
lovely tower, and made one feel that what had seemed 
inimitable could be copied. 

My first fortnight at Florence was spent in driving 
about seeing old gardens, and dropping into dim 
churches on summer evenings before returning home. 
My critical feelings were all absolutely dead. I could do 
nothing but gasp and admire, and with it always the 
dim memory of somehow having seen it all before, as in 
a dream. The churches in the fading evening light 
looked very solemn and very beautiful — portals to death, 
perhaps, rather than windows into heaven. But I do 
not know that I liked them less for that. I found 
Florence very little changed in its general aspect, in 
spite of the many alterations which have been such pain 
and grief to the English inhabitants. It is almost, if 
not quite, unspoilable. There are trams and omnibuses 
and incongruous things, no doubt ; but, oh ! it is won- 
derfully unchanged — from the time-worn stones of its 
pavements to the black eaves of its roofs against the 
brilliant sky. 

One need not be in Florence to give one's entire 
sympathy to the good people there who are trying their 
utmost to save the beautiful old city from destruction. 
To destroy old streets to build hotels may defeat its own 
object, for if Florence becomes less beautiful the demand 
for hotel rooms may diminish ; though, honestly, I 
think that, to keep up the influx of strangers, sanitary 
precautions and a certain content among the people 
are more necessary still. Five thousand English and 
other tourists left Florence the week before I arrived, in 
consequence of a very slight riot which followed on the 
two days' Socialist outbreak at Milan. The departure of 
strangers means ruin to the hotel -keepers and poverty 



JUNE 343 

to all those they employ; so my sympathy to a certain 
extent goes with the difficulties of the Italian Govern- 
ment, who have to consider the material benefit to the 
city and its people that may come from wider streets and 
bridges. When I see protests such as have appeared 
lately in the columns of our newspapers, a feeling of 
shame always comes over me at the wholesale destruction 
that has gone on within my memory in our own poor 
old London, and which few people think about, — for 
instance, the destruction of Temple Bar, because it was 
thought too expensive to make a road each side of it. 
Also the clearing away of sixteen or eighteen of Wren's 
beautiful churches. I would far rather see them used in 
some way for the people's good than destroyed. I can- 
not see why they should not be put to some useful 
service, as the monasteries and convents have been in 
France and Italy. If this is sacrilege, surely it is much 
more so wantonly to destroy ! At least, we might still 
have the beautiful spires of the kind which Mr. Watson 
describes : 

It soars like hearts of hapless men who dare 
To sue for gifts the gods refuse to allot ; 

Who climb forever toward they know not where, 
Baffled forever by they know not what. 

Not to speak of the hideous spoiling of the Thames 
by the railway and other bridges, narrow streets and old 
houses are constantly pulled down. Only the other day 
the picturesque almshouses of Westminster ceased to 
exist. Last, but not least, Wren's work is being disfig- 
ured, as most people feel, by the modern decorations in 
St. Paul's. I often wish a deputation of influential 
Italians, with a petition signed by hundreds of non- 
influential names, would come here and protest against 
this destruction of old buildings and our many other 



344 MORE POT-POURRI 

municipal shortcomings. May the Italians respect their 
lovely buildings ! — and I believe they will — better than 
we do. They certainly restore — with apparently only 
the wish to copy and maintain — a great deal better than 
any other European nation I know. I cannot make up 
my mind that in this they are wrong, in spite of the con- 
stant protests of the Anti- Restoration Society, with 
whose work I have been in much sympathy all my life. 
It seems hard to say that the beautiful buildings of the 
Middle Ages ought to be allowed to fall into ruins, and 
the effort to preserve what we admire will, I think, earn 
the gratitude of the ages to come. In the eighteenth 
century, ruins, as such, were admired even to the extent 
of making artificial ones, and the landscape painters not 
only steeped all nature's bright colours in black and 
brown, but painted the ruined columns under thunder- 
clouds, with Roman soldiers in togas walking about. And 
our grandfathers bought and admired their pictures ! 

June 6th. — When I was young, in Florence, a great 
mystery hung over the convent of San Marco, as women 
were not allowed to visit it, and we young ones thought 
of it principally in connection with its perfumery shop, 
where the Iris -root powder and pale pink lip -salve were 
better than anywhere else. It was with a real feeling of 
curiosity that I saw the interior and the famous frescoes 
that have survived so many centuries. I found them 
very sweet and child -like — these decorations of the little 
cells by the humble Christian monk ; but I suppose I 
had expected too much, for, as works of art, they disap- 
pointed me. In the little square surrounded by the 
cloister of San Marco, where Fra Girolamo sat sotto un 
rosajo di rose Damaschine preaching to his contempora- 
ries, the monks — or rather, I suppose, some unimagi- 
native official who has charge of the public buildings in 
Florence, has planted, instead of the gentle damask Rose 



JUNE 345 

and the Lavender and Rosemary, a huge flourishing Deo- 
dar. No doubt this tree is beautiful enough on the high, 
steep sides of the Lower Himalayas, but with its symmet- 
rical growth, and the size to which it has already attained, 
it is a most unsightly and inappropriate object in the 
restricted cortile of Savonarola's monastery. It puts 
everything out of all proportion, and is such an anach- 
ronism ! Deodars are quite modern trees in Europe, and 
are not pretty, even in villa gardens. I do wish it could 
be cut down ; plain, daisy -spangled turf would be much 
better. Nothing is so striking or so general as the want 
of imagination in planting. Sometimes plants are put 
in entirely out of character with the rest of a garden ; 
another time trees are planted which, when they grow 
well, entirely obscure the view or shut out the summer 
sunset. One curious anachronism I have noticed is that 
an artist, in painting a scene for the background of a 
Greek or Roman play, introduces American plants in his 
foreground ! So many places are merely spoilt in an 
effort to improve them, and this is especially the case all 
around Florence. 

Of all that I have read about Florence since my 
return, I think nothing is more attractively clever or 
more full of character, both of the place and of the 
writer, than a chapter called 'A Florentine Mosaic' in 
1 Tuscan Cities,' a little volume by W. D. Ho wells, the 
American. It is published in the 'English Library' 
series at Leipzig. Half the book is about Florence. It 
is a perfectly charming mixture of humour and history, 
bewildered tourist and most cultivated man of letters. 
It takes one so instantly into the very heart and core of 
the Middle Ages that one purrs with a delightful feel- 
ing of 'Oh, certainly ! Yes, I always did know all about 
it.' Popes and parties, blacks and whites, the ins 
and outs, etc. Art, which generally forms such a large 



346 MORE POT-POURRI 

portion of a book about Florence, is left out altogether, 
or at any rate is only like a brilliant tapestry background 
to his living, moving figures. It is so clear and so com- 
prehensive that it satisfies the idle and whets the appe- 
tite of those who wish to know more. Mr. Howells has 
a masterly way of sketching, and his appreciation of the 
cloisters is so real that, to my mind, he makes one feel 
it would be worth while to go all the way to Florence to 
see them and nothing else. Cloisters are, perhaps, the 
most characteristic things in Italy. He thus writes : 

' The thing that was novel to me, who found the 
churches of 1883 in Florence so like the churches of 
1863 in Venice, was the loveliness of the deserted 
cloisters belonging to so many of the former. These 
enclose nearly always a grass -grown space, where daisies 
and dandelions began to abound with the earliest con- 
sent of spring. Most public places and edifices in Italy 
have been so much photographed that few have any 
surprise left in them ; one is sure that one has seen them 
before. But the cloisters are not yet the prey of this 
sort of pre -acquaintance. Whether the vaults and walls 
of the colonnades are beautifully frescoed, like those of 
Santa Maria Novella or Santa Annunziata or San Marco, 
or the place has no attraction but its grass and sculp- 
tured stone, it is charming ; and these cloisters linger in 
my mind as something not less Florentine in character 
than the Ponte Vecchio or the Palazzo Publico. I 
remember particularly an evening effect in the cloister 
of Santa Annunziata, when the belfry in the corner, 
lifted aloft in its tower, showed with its pendulous bells 
like a great graceful flower against the dome of the 
church behind it. The quiet in the place was almost 
sensible ; the pale light, suffused with rose, had a deli- 
cate clearness ; there was a little agreeable thrill of cold 
in the air ; there could not have been a more refined 



JUNE 347 

moment's pleasure offered to a sympathetic tourist 
loitering homeward to his hotel.' 

As I write, I feel 'Of course everyone knows this 
book,' but it is often not so, and no one told me of it 
till long after I got back. I experienced one of those 
1 refined moments of pleasure ' when one beautiful June 
afternoon — warm, but not one bit too hot — we drove 
to the CCrtosa, and, sending the carriage round, walked 
up its steep Olive slopes to the monastery. A few of 
the white -robed monks still remained in possession. I 
did not make out if they are renewed or not, but 
their presence preserves the character of the place. I 
had never seen it before ; for of course years ago, like 
San Marco, it was not shown to women. The garden 
was peaceful to a degree, shimmering in the golden- 
veiled summer sunshine. Never did I see such lovely 
lavender ; it was as different from our northern plant as 
could be. The flowering part was just double as long, 
and one mass of grey-blue flowers, which gave a general 
effect in the garden as of blue haze. One side of the 
cloister had been thrown down by the earthquake of 
three years ago. They were beginning to repair it — 
with the usual Italian patient fidelity in restoration. 

No one who goes to the Certosa should fail to take 
special notice of the remarkable pietra tombale — so 
different from our dull interpretation of the ' tombstone ' 
— of Cardinal Lionardo Buonafede. I am told it is 
often missed. This recumbent statue is as fresh and 
well preserved as the day it was made, which is very 
rare with any of these peculiar effigies. The figure of 
the old Cardinal lies on the tessellated marble floor. 
His head is propped by costly pillows, and he wears his 
jeweled mitre. His stockinged feet and simply crossed 
hands, with the long, straight draperies of his robe, are a 
most perfect example of the realistic sculpture of the 



348 MORE POT-POURRI 

Middle Ages — as true as waxwork, with none of its vul- 
garity — so different from the degeneracy of modern 
Italian art. I wish I knew why it has been a Christian 
custom to clothe the feet of the dead ; they are especially 
beautiful. If all else is changed, they remain the same. 

June 9th. — This being the Festival of Corpus 
Christi, we went in the afternoon to the little church 
close by of Santa Margharita. Ouida describes, much 
better than I can do, ' the little, brown, square church, 
with its bell clanging in the open tower high above in 
the sweet air on the hills ; there is level grass all about 
it ; and it has a cool, green garden, shut within walls on 
every side except where a long parapet of red, dusky 
tiles leaves open the view of the Valdarno ; underneath 
the parapet there are other terraces of deep grass and 
old, old Olive trees, in whose shade the orchids love to 
grow and the blue Iris springs up in great sheaves of 
sword -like leaves. 

' There are trees of every sort in the cloistered gar- 
den, the turf is rich and long, the flowers are tended 
with the greatest care, the little sacristy grows red in 
the sun, an Acanthus climbs against it ; the sacristan's 
wife comes out to you plaiting her straw, and brings 
you a cluster of her Roses ; you sit on the stone seat, 
and lean over the parapet and look downward ; birds flit 
about you ; contadini go along the grass paths under- 
neath and nod to you, smiling ; a delicious mingled 
loveliness of Olive wood and Ilex foliage and blossom- 
ing vineyards shelve beneath you ; you see all Florence 
gleaming far below there in the sun, and your eyes 
sweep from the snow that still lies on Vallombrosa to 
the blue shadows of the Carrara range. 

'It is calm and golden and happy here at Santa 
Margharita' s, high in the fragrant hill air, with the 
Guelder Roses nodding above head, and the voices of 



JUNE 349 

the vine -dressers echoing from the leaf -veiled depths 
below.' 

That is an exact description of the spot ; we went 
there often, and we, too, hung over the parapet and 
thought of the tempo passato. I could see the little 
church tower always from my bedroom window. 

On this beautiful June afternoon we saw the most 
picturesque and characteristic procession — the Host 
carried from the church to the chapel of a villa about 
half a mile off. The houses round, year by year, take 
it in turns to be so honoured. The priests in general 
were very ugly and common -looking, but the young 
man who on this occasion carried the Host was superb, 
like the Giorgione in the Pitti. The lighted candles in 
the outdoor evening light, the white -robed priests, the 
long procession of peasants, were most striking. Arriv- 
ing at the villa, they passed to the chapel under a loggia, 
the tessellated pavement of which was drawn out in a 
beautiful coloured pattern made of the petals of flowers 
— Poppies, Roses, Larkspurs, the brilliant yellow 
Broom — and all between the pattern filled in with little 
leaves of bright green Box. The effect was to me quite 
new and very decorative. The procession passed on 
each side, and the priest alone, carrying the Host, was 
esteemed worthy to walk straight down the middle of 
this nature -coloured carpet. Nothing could have been 
more rurallj r peaceful and lovely than the whole scene. 
In the earlier days of the century we were taught to 
believe the troubles of Italy, like the troubles of Ireland, 
were owing to Catholicism. Now the theory is that the 
Latin races are dying out ; but if this is true, is it cer- 
tain they are dying of Catholicism ? Is it not quite 
wonderfully clear the Italians have never lost their 
Paganism f I confess, as I watched the whole scene, I 
could only think of Pater's opening to ' Marius the 



350 MORE POT-POURRI 

Epicurean,' in which he describes how the purer forms 
of Paganism had lingered in the villages after the 
triumph of Christianity — ' a religion of usages rather 
than the facts of belief, and attached to very definite 
things and places.' Then comes the description of the 
' little ' or private Ambarvalia in the home of the youth 
Marius, and it almost exactly describes what I saw this 
June day quite at the end of the nineteenth century. 
'At the appointed time all work ceases ; the instru- 
ments of labour lie untouched, hung with wreaths of 
flowers ; while masters and servants together go in sol- 
emn procession along the dry paths of vineyard and 
cornfield. . . . The old Latin words of the Liturgy, 
to be said as the procession moved on its way, though 
their precise meaning has long since become unin- 
telligible. 

'Early on that day the girls of the farm had been 
busy in the great portico, filling large baskets with 
flowers cut short from branches of Apple and Cherry, 
then in spacious bloom, to strew before the quaint 
images of the gods — Ceres and Bacchus, and the yet 
more mysterious Dea Dia — as they passed through the 
fields, carried in their little houses on the shoulders of 
white -clad youths, who were understood to proceed to 
this office in perfect temperance, as pure in soul and 
body as the air they breathed in the firm weather of 
that early summer-time. The clean lustral water and 
the full incense-box were carried after them.' 

So far the description is exact. The butchery which 
disgusted Marius, Christianity has swept away ; but 
everything else remains almost entirely the same. 

All trace of costume amongst the peasants has dis- 
appeared even in this Arcetri neighbourhood, the most 
simple and countrified side of Florence. The people, 
from the outside, look well-to-do and comfortable, and 



JUNE 35i 

on festal days the young of both sexes walk about the 
roads in cheerful, happy bands. They never go in 
couples, as we everlastingly see them on the same occa- 
sions in England ; but the boys were together, and the 
girls together. The figures of the women in the long, 
plain skirts and coloured shirts struck me as very grace- 
ful and dignified. George Eliot says of Romola : ' Let 
her muffle herself as she will, everyone wants to see what 
there is under her veil, for she has that way of walking 
like a procession.' That is just what one may say of 
many of these young Tuscan women. She also says : 
' There has been no great people without processions, 
and the man who thinks himself too wise to be moved by 
them to anything but contempt is like the puddle that 
was proud of standing alone while the river rushed by. ' 

All my early time at Florence was spent in driving 
about, seeing villas, wandering through the poderes, 
resting and drawing. For the amateur sketcher, what a 
mental struggle it is ! — whether to give the time to 
drawing, or to see all one can. One day we started at 
eight, and drove up to Monte Sennaria, fifteen miles or 
so, on the Bologna Road. This took us past the villa 
we lived in as children. I found that all had been much 
changed and grown up. Even the road — which in my 
day passed between walls out of which grew the large, 
handsome house — was now turned to the left, and the 
space between it and the villa thickly planted with ever- 
greens, thus entirely depriving it of its original Italian 
character. 

I can remember now the mysterious tremble with 
which I used sometimes to lie awake at night and hear 
the tinkle of the bell of the dead -cart, as it passed under 
the windows up to the cemetery on the hill. I had been 
told no coffins were used, and I always thought some 
one might wake during the long drive. The morning 



352 MORE POT-POURRI 

we went to Monte Sennaria the weather was lovely, and, 
though rather hot on starting, it soon got delicious ; 
and as we reached the higher ground many spring 
flowers remained. I particularly noticed quantities of 
the blue Italian Borage, growing small and low on dried 
banks, and a sheet of gentian -blue bloom. Grown in 
good soil in English flower borders, it is coarse and 
leafy, and flowers but little ; at least, that is my experi- 
ence. I shall find it a most valuable plant in Surrey if 
it will grow in poor, dry places. Last autumn, after I 
got home, I immediately moved some of my plants of 
Italian Borage to the driest, sunniest spot in the 
garden. I shall see if it will flower as abundantly as it 
did in Italy. The Rush or Italian Broom ought to be 
sown every year in light soils, as it is such a useful 
July -flowering plant, and rarely seen — not being quite 
hardy — in Surrey. 

The villas of the rich that I saw round Florence — 
and, of course, there are a great many which I did not 
see — are to be recognised by the fact that the Vine and 
Olive, Lemon and Pomegranate, Fig and Mulberry, are 
turned out for the planting of Laurels, Deodars and 
other conifers, Rhododendrons, and coarse -growing, un- 
pruned shrubs. The beautiful old walls are often lev- 
elled to the ground, to make a slope of coarse -growing 
grass ; or the wall formerly used for the trained and 
well -pruned Vine is smothered with a mass of untended 
creepers. The newly planted Crimson Rambler is doing 
very well and making excessive growth, though it will 
never be a general favourite, as it flowers too late and is 
not a marketable Rose ; so the gardeners despise it, which 
is lucky, as its colour is not good. The greatest crime 
of all, as regards the spoiling of Italian gardens, is 
destroying the effect of space and coolness, and at the 
same time entirely shutting out the view by planting 



JUNE 353 

trees — say, even a row of Poplars. The old gardens, as 
perhaps Dante and Boccaccio saw them, are now smoth- 
ered in Virginia Creeper, and made to look as much like 
a villa at Hampstead or Putney as possible. Magnolias 
are crowded out, and Camellias seem no longer culti- 
vated (I suppose, because they are out of fashion in 
English conservatories) ; and instead of the cool, gray 
gravel, so easily kept raked and weeded in the old days, 
unsatisfactory grass paths are attempted. In the garden 
that I especially remember, having spent months there 
twice in my life, the view towards the city and the Val 
d'Arno right away to the Carraras — which on favoured 
evenings are rubies or sapphires or beaten gold against 
the sky — all this, so ineffaceably impressed on my 
memory, is now hidden from sight by a dark, gloomy, 
tangled mass of evergreens. As regards the modern 
treatment of newly made gardens in Florence, it is only 
fair to say that I saw them much too late, all attention 
being given to make them beautiful up to the end of 
May, as at about that time most of the English visitors 
fly northward. 

The gardens which gave me most pleasure were those 
which had remained in the hands of Italians and re- 
tained their old character. All over the world the 
English have an insane, inartistic, though perhaps 
natural desire, not to develop the capabilities of the soil 
and climate in which they are forced to live, which 
would give a real interest to every plot of cultivated 
ground inhabited by the white man, but to have a gar- 
den as like 'home' as possible — to make a lawn, which 
fails and is ugly, and to plant a shrubbery, which grows 
apace and chokes everything really worth growing. 

I got last year from Seville a letter describing what a 
southern garden should be : ' The Alkasar garden is 
the most beautiful I ever saw : very neglected as regards 

w 



354 MORE POT-POURRI 

individual plants, but so lovely as a whole. The beds 
are all sunk. You walk between dwarf Myrtle hedges 
on tiled, paved, or brick paths, and every now and then 
you come to a round point with coloured tile seats. 
Some of the outside Myrtle hedges are waist -high and 
very fine. The beds are eighteen inches below the path, 
and again divided by little Myrtle hedges six inches 
high (no doubt the origin of our Box edgings). They 
are mostly filled with Violets and sweet-scented shrubs, 
and above tower great Magnolias, Lemons, Oranges, 
Verbenas, Heliotrope, Jasmines in clumps, and a host of 
other things I do not know the names of. Here and 
there the path leads to a great raised marble tank or 
Moorish bath. There are innumerable small fountains 
sunk and tiled ; round one of these is a great tiled walk 
with Orange trees sunk in round holes about two feet 
deep, making a fine double avenue. I fancy the garden 
is pretty much as it was originally laid out by the 
Moors. I wish you could see it. The Spaniards have 
added their favourite Carnations grown in pots, but little 
else. It seemed to me that the style might well be 
copied in England, making the beds much less ; cer- 
tainly the little shallow fountains would look lovely 
anywhere. • We have seen one or two other gardens, 
always the sunk beds and tiled or paved paths, and 
always Violets used as grass round the roots of any- 
thing. Where we are has been an eye-opener to me 
about the English abroad and their narrowness in 
household management. Our garden was made by an 
Englishman, so all our beds are raised, and are washed 
away in every storm, and the would-be gravel path is 
most of it in the high road below. Your book has been 
of the greatest use in our tiny garden. Even though 
the conditions are so different, the spirit is the same.' 
My dear young friend a little misses the spirit of 



JUNE 355 

what I mean when she thinks the system of the garden 
she describes can be brought to England. Where there 
is frost and damp, such things get soon spoilt and in- 
jured, and look mournful and decayed. Broken -up 
paving -stones are pretty in a formal garden, and — 
planted with Lavender, Pinks, Carnations, Rosemary, 
Saxifrages, and Roses — can be made to look lovely at 
all seasons. But sunk beds as she describes them, 
which are perfect for irrigation in the South, would 
never do here. The plants would damp off. Raised 
beds, however, are undesirable even in England in light 
soils. We can no more imitate what is best in the 
South than they can imitate our velvet lawns and our 
sweeping Beech trees. Planting the Viola odorata (the 
Old English garden Violet) under every shrub or tiny 
Gooseberry and Currant bush, in both flower and kitchen 
garden, has been a great success with me in Surrey. If 
tried with even Czar Violets, which require more care 
and cultivation, it would be a failure. The cultivation 
of Carnations in pots might be more carried out in Eng- 
land — with advantage, I think. And it would be better 
if the pots were painted or glazed half-way down, as 
done on the Continent, to prevent evaporation. The 
single -branching Larkspurs of all colours were grown 
in pots at Florence, and looked so well. I am trying 
some. They are far prettier than the double annual 
Larkspur generally grown in England. 

The two most beautiful villas I saw truly carried out, 
with their lovely grounds, the half -monkish ideal ex- 
pressed by Newman : ' By a garden is meant mystically 
a place of spiritual repose, stillness, peace, refreshment, 
and delight.' Our gay, modern, brilliant, flowery Eng- 
lish parterres and Scotch and Irish gardens express, to 
my mind, none of this. Apart from everything else, 
their limited size renders this impossible. They tell us 



356 MORE POT-POURRI 

a garden is the reward of toil; the earth's cry of delight 
that winter is over and gone ; the full enjoyment of 
plenty and rich colour, requiring constant care ; not a 
place of 'spiritual repose, stillness, and delight.' 

The more splendid of these two villas was, tradition 
says, designed by Michael Angelo, and it is worthy of 
his brain and hand. In its large simplicity it reminds 
one of his will : ' Lascio 1' anima a Dio e la mia roba ai 
piu prossimi parenti.' This villa stands many miles 
high on the hillside southwest of Florence, and is 
approached by the usual stately Cypress avenue. Its 
massive plain front and its open arcade are most im- 
pressive. On the right was the solemn shade of the 
Ilex grove, and beneath was the boundless view of sun- 
lit Florence. 

The other villa, most wonderful of all as regards its 
surroundings and views, was Villa Gamberaia (which 
means, 'Pool of the Crayfish '), four or five miles from 
Florence, beyond Settingiano. I suppose everyone who 
goes to Florence sees it, or used to do so ; now it is 
more difficult. Napoleon III. lived in it at one time. I 
wonder if in after-life his thoughts sometimes turned 
with sorrowful regrets to the peaceful days passed 
there ? Here were Cypresses taller and straighter than 
any I had ever seen ; long, green alleys, ending in small 
temples; high walls over which Oleanders tossed them- 
selves, their branches heavy with the bloom of their 
exquisite pink flowers ; and all the long afternoon of 
the late June day the nightingales sang. Why, in colder 
climes, do they stop singing so much earlier in the year, 
and here they sing well into midsummer? With the 
exception of these nightingales in favoured woods, the 
birds are very silent in Italy in June. But the sounds 
are many — frogs, insects, the constant singing of the 
grasshoppers. Keats says: 'The poetry of Earth is 



JUNE 357 

never dead. When all the birds are faint with the hot 
sun and hide in cooling trees, a voice will run from 
hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead. That is the 
grasshopper's.' 

For associations with the South, there is nothing in 
the way of sounds to equal the sad call of the little 
night -owl — or aziola, as the Italians call it. The fol- 
lowing colloquial poem of Shelley's, if not a gem 
amongst his lyrics, expresses the tender affection we 
must all feel for this little bird : 

' Do you not hear the aziola cry? 
Methinks she must be nigh,' 

Said Mary, as we sate 
In dusk, ere stars were lit or candles brought ; 
And I, who thought 
This aziola was some tedious woman, 

Ask'd, ' Who is Aziola?' How elate 
I felt to know that it was nothing human, 

No mockery of myself to fear or hate ! 
And Mary saw my soul, 

And laughed and said, 'Disquiet yourself not; 
'Tis nothing but a little, downy owl.' 

Sad aziola ! many an eventide 

Thy music I had heard 
By wood and stream, meadow aud mountainside, 
And fields and marshes wide, — 
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird, 

The soul ever stirr'd; 
Unlike, and far sweeter than them all. 
Sad aziola! from that moment I 
Loved thee and thy sad cry. 

One of my first inquiries on my arrival in Florence 
was about an old villa that in my time belonged to a 
rich Russian. They said it was all swept away and the 
treasures gone to St. Petersburg. The reason this villa 
made so deep an impression on me was that there I saw 



358 MORE POT-POURRI 

for the first time a picture of ' Paolo and Franeesca ' ; it 
was by Ary Scheffer. I was so young that it set me 
wondering how Dante could call it Hell and yet leave 
them together. The same thought has been rendered 
finely, I think, by a young friend who signs himself 
'M. B.' His sonnet was written on seeing the much 
stronger and more beautiful representation of the same 
subject by Mr. Watts : 

Though borne like withered leaves upon a stream, 
Perished and dead, they would not live again, 
Nor in the hard world face the wiles of men ; 

Their past is but the haunting of a dream. 

And yet they would not sleep in Asphodel, 
Nor — for without remorse is their regret — 
Drink deep of bliss and utterly forget ; 

Not for all Heaven would they exchange their Hell. 

And they give thanks because their punishment 

Is sealed and sure, because their doom shall be 

To go in anguish through eternity 
Together on the never-resting air. 

Beyond all happiness is their content 

Who know there is no end to their despair. 

At the end of June the whole colour of the country 
had changed and become much richer from the corn 
ripening. This restored to the Olive trees once more 
their gray colour in the sunlight, and in evening light 
they again looked cool and almost blue against the warm 
madder and ochre of the corn. How endless in nature 
is the making of colour by contrast ! 

Custom often has in it more reason than at first 
appears. I never could understand why so few people 
go to Italy in summer. But the fact is, they hunger for 
bright, strong colour — blue skies and yellow sunsets, 
purple mountains and brilliant flowers. These they find 
in spring and autumn, to their hearts' content ; but 
summer in Florence is mellow and veiled, and very ten- 



JUNE 359 

der in colour, truly represented in Mason's pictures, and 
so totally unlike the typical water-colour drawings of 
Italy from the brush of Richardson or Aaron Penley, 
much the fashion fifty years ago. 

At one villa I saw a pond of lovely Burmese goldfish, 
quite different from any I had ever before seen alive, 
and exactly resembling the fish in Japanese drawings 
and Chinese bowls — little, fat bodies, and large, swim- 
ming bladders, and long, waving tails which made their 
movements very swift and graceful. They were fed 
with little bits of wafer, the same as that used in 
Catholic churches, and also used all over the Continent 
for wrapping up powders so that you should not taste 
the medicine. The fish pounced on these delicate mor- 
sels with extraordinary rapacity and greed. I have 
never dared feed the goldfish in my fountain, as they 
remain so much healthier with only the natural food 
they are able to procure. Where the fountains are 
kept very clean, the best food for them, if these wafers 
cannot be procured, is crumbled vermicelli. 

June 17th. — My time was half over in Florence 
before I went to the picture galleries at all — not because 
I did not wish to go, but there was so much else to see 
and enjoy and admire. It is almost useless to speak of 
the pictures themselves. Those who have seen them 
know what they are ; and to those who have not, no 
words would convey any idea. It was very interesting 
to me to realise how my own taste had altered. The 
outside of the Pitti, grand and massive as the building 
is, gives me no pleasure. Under the archway, and 
beyond the public entrance into the building, there is 
a little yard where a wonderful sight can be obtained 
of the Arabesque patterns which adorn the outside of 
the old Medici passage to the Uffizi. It is worth while 
to go through to look at them. Inside the galleries, 



360 MORE POT-POURRI 

pictures that used to be pointed out to me as the great 
gems in my youth seemed now comparatively uninter- 
esting. Botticelli, whom I at that time never heard 
of, stands indeed a head and shoulders above his con- 
temporaries. Two quite little cabinet pictures in one 
of the small rooms at the Uffizi gave me much to think 
of. One was the exquisite little 'Judith.' His render- 
ing of the subject first gave me a kind of understanding 
why the old masters were so fond of the ghastly story 
which must have appealed to them from their own wars 
and dissensions. I have always hated the usual treat- 
ment of this subject — the bleeding corpse on the bed 
and the uplifted head in Judith's hand. But here the 
beautiful heroine widow, her deed accomplished, her 
country saved, trips home again with stately pride 
across the open country. Warriors are in the dis- 
tance, fields and flowers in front, and her child -like, 
innocent face is turned full towards one. In one hand 
she holds the emblem of peace, an Olive branch ; in 
the other the sword of power. Behind her comes the 
maid, with the handsome head of Holofernes in the 
meat -bag on her head. The maid's expression of 
mingled awe and admiration is quite as much beyond 
the time in variety of expression and powerful story- 
telling as is Judith's own, which shows one how she 
will shortly say, with a loud voice : ' Praise, praise God, 
praise God, I say ; for He hath not taken away His 
mercy from the House of Israel, but hath destroyed 
our enemies by mine hands this night.' 

The other picture, 'Calumny,' is hung quite near. 
It is a little larger, and is unique and remarkable in 
every way : an allegorical picture full of thought. The 
idea was suggested to Botticelli by Lucian's description 
of a painting by Apelles. For the benefit of those as 
ignorant as I was, I may as well say that Apelles was a 



JUNE 361 

famous painter at the Court of the first Alexander, 
and then of Ptolemy, about 330 B.C.: and that Lueian 
was a Greek writer of the time of Marcus Aurelius, 
and that his manuscripts were brought from Constanti- 
nople to Italy about 1425, and printed for the first 
time at Florence in 1496, Botticelli's own date being 
1437-1515. 

The whole picture is painted with the greatest finish 
and delicacy, and with an immense wealth of detail. In 
the background are three highly decorated arches, with 
a pure, blue sky, tenderly graduated, showing through. 
In the middle of the picture is Calumny, hurrying 
towards the Judge, and attended by two women, repre- 
senting Hypocrisy and Treachery. Calumny drags a 
rather feeble young man, without clothes, by the hair of 
his head along the ground. He holds his hands up 
in an attitude of supplication, and is supposed to 
represent Innocence. Envy, a male figure clothed in 
shabby garments, stands between this group and the 
Judge's throne. Ignorance and Distrust are whisper- 
ing into the long donkey's ears of the Judge. On the 
left of the picture is the black, draped figure of Re- 
morse, who turns and looks at a beautiful naked young 
woman representing Truth. Calumny has seized and 
is carrying before the Judge Truth's lighted torch. It 
is impossible to look at this picture and not have brought 
to one's mind the wretched fate of the modern prisoner 
on the Devil's Island. 

Had nothing been preserved to us of Botticelli's but 
these two pictures, I think we should have known that 
he was one of the men who were most in advance of 
their time, and one of the greatest painters the world has 
ever known. To my mind, the Botticellis in our own 
National Gallery give no sort of idea of his gifts and 
powers as seen at Florence. 



362 MORE POT-POURRI 

An old friend, to whom I had written of my love of 
the early Tuscan painters when I was at Florence as a 
girl of twenty, answered me as follows, and I suppose 
many would agree with him : 

' The modern taste for the very early Florentine 
masters must, I think, be an acquired one, and, though 
in your own case it may have seemed spontaneous, I 
doubt whether any intellectual taste or tendency is 
wholly self -formed in the case of a girl of nineteen. 
At that impressionable age living in a mental atmos- 
phere congenial to it, you with your quick receptive 
temperament probably imbibed from those around you, 
whose opinions on art were entitled to your respect, and 
without any conscious effort or critical process of your 
own, that sentiment about the early Florentine masters 
to which the writings of Ruskin had already given so 
strong an impulse, and which was then the pervading 
sentiment of connoisseurs and persons interested in 
pictorial art. Perugino is the earliest master in whose 
works I can find beauty — a quality essential to my 
enjoyment of art as such. The earlier masters, Giotto, 
Cimabue, Taddeo Gaddi, Masaccio, Lippo Lippi, etc., 
seem to me only interesting. 7 

With regard to Botticelli, I feel that he alone perhaps 
among the Tuscans strikes the note which Berenson 
alludes to in the following passage from his 'Venetian 
Painters,' and I like to feel that Berenson's optimism 
about modern art and life is true : 

' Indeed, not the least attraction of the Venetian 
masters is their note of modernity, bj r which I mean the 
feeling they give us that they were on the high road to 
the art of to-day. We have seen how, on two separate 
occasions, Venetian painters gave an impulse to Span- 
iards, who in turn have had an extraordinary influence 
on modern painting. It would be easy, too, although it 



JUNE 363 

is not my purpose, to show how much other schools of 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries — such as the 
Flemish, led by Rubens, and the English, led by Rey- 
nolds — owed to the Venetians. My endeavour has been 
to explain some of the attractions of the school, and 
particularly to show its close dependence upon the 
thought and feeling of the Renaissance. This is per- 
haps its greatest interest, for, being such a complete 
expression of the riper spirit of the Renaissance, it helps 
us to a larger understanding of a period which has in 
itself the fascination of youth, and which is particularly 
attractive to us because the spirit that animates us is 
singularly like the better spirit of that epoch. We, too, 
are possessed of boundless curiosity. We, too, have an 
almost intoxicating sense of human capacity. We, too, 
believe in a great future for humanity, and nothing has 
yet happened to check our delight in discovery or our 
faith in life.' 

The head of Rembrandt in his youth, painted by him- 
self, in the Pitti (not either of those in the Uffizi) is 
perhaps the most beautiful of his many self- painted por- 
traits. None, certainly, in the Rembrandt Exhibition at 
Burlington House this winter came near to it for beauty, 
in my humble opinion. 

There is also an unusual portrait of Charles I. and 
Henrietta Maria, painted together in one frame, divided 
only by the twisted column of an Italian window. I 
have never before seen a double portrait treated in quite 
the same way. It is Van Dyke at his best — so finished, 
so refined ! Perhaps he took extra pains, knowing it 
was going to the young Queen's Medicean relations, in 
the then far-away beautiful Florence. 

I find I am doing exactly what I meant not to do, and 
must stop noticing pictures, as any guidebook describes 
all the best pictures quite enough. 



364 MORE POT-POURRI 

I found a treasure in one of the smaller rooms at the 
Pitti which Mr. Hare, at any rate, does not mention. 
It was the most remarkable piece of furniture, from some 
points of view, I think I ever saw in my life, though 
perhaps many would call it unartistic. Historically, it 
is interesting from the religious attitude it represents. 
It was a large cabinet on a raised stand. It belonged to 
Cardinal Leopoldo dei Medici, and was placed in his 
dressing-room. One side of it, when the doors were 
opened, acted as an altar, with a delicately-carved cru- 
cifix in a recess, before which the Cardinal could say 
mass. On the other side the doors opened on to an 
elaborate toilet table of a most luxurious kind, with 
looking-glasses and every other appliance. The whole 
piece of furniture contained a number of small drawers, 
many of them secret. The black wood of which it was 
made was highly polished and a beautiful specimen of 
cabinet work. The whole was richly inlaid, outside and 
in, with various marbles, stones, and alabasters of dif- 
ferent colours and sizes. The veinings and colourings 
of these were used and adapted as the landscape back- 
grounds of wonderfully delicate little oil paintings, rep- 
resenting almost the whole of the Bible stories, both Old 
and New Testament. It requires hours to see this cabi- 
net properly, and among all the treasures in this wonder 
palace it is, perhaps, the object that gives one the 
greatest idea of the wealth and luxury of that God-and- 
mammon period that can possibly be seen. It is sup- 
posed to have been made in Germany and painted by 
Breughel. Some paintings on wood, using the graining 
of the wood as suggestive of the landscapes, are the 
only attempts I have seen in modern art to carry out this 
idea of Breughel's paintings on stones. The natural 
markings of the wood give great variety to the compo- 
sition of the landscape. This is very much increased 



JUNE 365 

by the varied materials used for the decoration of this 
marvellous cabinet. 

Of course I re-read 'Romola'; everyone does and 
ought, as being in the atmosphere of Florence extraor- 
dinarily increases the enjoyment of what is in many 
ways a very wonderful book, full of fine things and pas- 
sionately sympathetic with women's trials. 

In a very old notebook of mine, I find the following 
sentence. I have no idea by whom it was written ; but 
it so exactly describes why certain books, and indeed 
certain people, appeal to me when others that are in 
many respects better leave me cold and indifferent, that 
I repeat it now in my old age, agreeing with it as I did 
at twenty : 

'We readily overlook all that is tasteless and igno- 
rant for the sake of that power which, in reminding us 
of the misery of the world, translates it into something 
softening, elevating, uniting. We should fully allow 
that some immortal work, and a great deal of the most 
popular work, is almost entirely without the feeling. 
There is scarcely a touch of it in Homer; there is not a 
touch of it in many a novel much sought for at the 
libraries. But to us it appears one of the greatest gifts 
of the writer of fiction. It is not that we desire to be 
always contemplating the misery of the world ; when 
we take up a novel we often desire to forget it. But an 
author who does not know it cannot make us forget it ; 
and a writer who is to deliver us from its oppressive 
forms must be able to translate the manifold troubles 
of life, with all their bewildering entanglement, their 
distracting pettiness, into something that releases such 
tears as the foreign slaves shed on Hector's bier. 
" Their woes their own, a hero's death the plea." ' 

No modern novelist that I know does this better than 
George Eliot. 



366 MORE POT-POURRI 

In Florence, with the sky and the sunshine and the 
whole mind in a receptive condition, no effort was nec- 
essary fully to appreciate 'Romola.' What a difference 
that does make ! Reading some books at unfavourable 
times is as great an injustice towards the author as look- 
ing at pictures, no matter how beautiful, in the dark. 

June 19th. — Sad news has come from England to-day 
of the death of Sir Edward Burne- Jones. What a loss! 

The following very simple little poem by Byron — not 
much known, I think — is not modern in feeling, but fits 
singularly, for those who believe in spirit -land, the 
death of a man like Burne -Jones : 

Bright be the place of thy soul! 

No lovelier spirit than thine 
E'er burst from its mortal control 

In the orbs of the blessed to shine. 

On earth thou wert all but divine, 

As thy soul shall immortally be ; 
And our sorrow shall cease to repine 

When we know that thy God is with thee. 

Light be the turf of thy tomb! 

May its verdure like emeralds be ! 
•There should not be the shadow of gloom 

In aught that reminds us of thee. 

Young flowers and an evergreen tree 
May spring from the spot of thy rest; 

But no Cypress nor Yew let us see, 

For why should we mourn for the blest? 

Those who do not believe in spirit-land in any think- 
able form — and I fancy they are many more than is 
generally supposed — when brought face to face with 
death, mourn not for the peace and rest of those that 
are gone, but for themselves — their own personal grief 
and loss and misery — and feel a kind of humiliation that 



JUNE 367 

what they themselves prized most, or the person who 
loved them most, is gone from them. Such grief, like 
all our other selfishness, should be fought and controlled 
as much as we have strength for. The old notion of 
those who prayed against sudden death was of a death 
unprepared, unsanctified by the Church, that did not 
give the same chance of eternal happiness to some one 
they loved which was freely granted to the majority. 
This indeed was a thought only to find relief in wailing 
and gnashing of teeth. Now we say : 'What was best 
for them was worst for us, but what does that matter?' 

In speaking of Burne -Jones' work many years ago, 
Mr. Ruskin said : ' His work is simply the only art- 
work at present produced in England which will be 
received by the future as classic. I know that these will 
be immortal, as the best things the mid -nineteenth cen- 
tury in England can produce, in such true relations as it 
had through all confusion retained with the paternal 
and everlasting art of the world.' And do we not all 
feel this is true? 

June 21th. — This is the great Florentine 'Festa,' of 
which I had often heard and never seen. We were too 
idle to go down to the ceremonies at the cathedral in the 
morning, but in the afternoon there were vespers at the 
baptistery, and the sight was most characteristic and 
curious. Every child that is born in Florence is still 
baptised there, and the water is still salted as of old. 
There were men, women, and children crowding through 
— both of the large doors being opened wide to the 
sunny piazza. These openings were veiled during the 
service by a long, black, thin curtain. In the middle, 
raised on an altar and again raised on steps, was the 
beautiful jewelled Benvenuto Cellini John the Baptist 
shrine. The people went up and touched it, and mothers, 
after touching the shrine, then touched the babies in their 



368 MORE POT-POURRI 

arms, who held up their tiny hands to receive the touch, 
and afterwards reverently kissed their own fingers. 

Strong peasant men were there, young and old. It 
cannot be one of the least of the mysterious Florentine 
bonds, this baptistery which brings back to the inhabi- 
tants the recollection of every child that is born to them, 
more especially as the infant mortality must be pro- 
digious. A handsome mother and daughter knelt just 
before me on the marble floor, types of to-day. The 
mother, old and tired and hot, mumbled prayers, but not 
with devotion. The cold hand of Time had laid hold 
on her. If the old are religious it is mentally, not 
passionately, and it takes the form of 'calm repose and 
peace divine.' The daughter, handsome though not very 
young, with coal-black hair, said her prayers with closed 
eyelids and a passionate pathos in her face, softening 
for a time her somewhat masculine features — a perfect 
example of life's disappointments, not yet utterly with- 
out hope. 

Passing out into the glorious evening sunshine, we 
went inside the large, bare Duomo, beautiful to me from 
its size, its majesty, its cool shades, illuminated by the 
pouring in of the bright summer western sun, which 
formed rays of light across the darkness. A full choral 
vesper was not yet quite ended, and the boys threw back 
their heads and flung out their high notes, echoing into 
the dome. It was not very reverent or beautiful, but it 
sounded well, as it mounted, in wave upon wave of sound, 
into the echoing cavities of the great vault. Many 
people think the inside of the Duomo ugly, and of course 
one can see how it was the origin of much ugliness that 
came afterwards ; but it has a grand beauty of its own, 
and the jewelled glass is the exact sort of old glass I 
admire— most vague in design, but strong in colour, and 
glowing with a richness beyond the finest enamel. 



JUNE 369 

Later in the evening we went on to a balcony on the 
Lung' Arno, to see the fireworks let off from the opposite 
hill of San Miniato. I had not seen good fireworks for 
many years. They may be as good at the Crystal Pal- 
ace, and no doubt are, but never can the whole scene be 
anything like as lovely as those fireworks on this night 
of San Giovanni, with the background of the San Mini- 
ato hill, and the river in front a mirror of reflections. 
Every street poured its crowd in all directions on to the 
Lung' Arno. We had excellent places, and my com- 
panion, in a burst of enthusiasm, seized my arm and 
said : 'I don't care, it is simply the most beautiful thing 
in art or nature I have ever seen.' High over all hung 
the young moon, in the clear lapis lazuli sky. The crowd 
poured along in a ceaseless stream, but it was impossible 
to imagine anything more quiet and orderly. From the 
absence of strangers, the streets were so empty in the 
daytime one wondered where the people could possibly 
all come from now. 

June 26th. — I was faithful to my tastes, and though I 
had little time I went to the Botanical Garden in the 
town. It had nothing in it very remarkable ; all the 
greenhouse plants were out in the open, and many of 
our northern plants were growing somewhat shabbily in 
pots as botanical curiosities, in the way we grow south- 
ern things at home. The beautiful Catalpa sy ring ce folia 
was in full flower here, and in all other good Florentine 
gardens. The same with Trachelospermum jasminoides, 
which hung over all the walls in the greatest profusion, 
scenting the air for yards round. I am sure this plant 
is generally too much coddled at home, and would do 
better if sunk out during the summer and well watered; 
it is a greenhouse plant well worth growing. Asclepias 
incarnata and Asclepias tuber osa were very sweet ; both 
these and Solanum glaucum are quite worthy of a place 



37° MORE POT-POURRI 

in a fair-sized greenhouse. Rupelia juncea, from Mexico, 
struck me as a pretty greenhouse plant, with red flowers 
and weedy growth. Iris pseudacorus was growing in a 
huge sunk pot, half earth, half water. 

There was a large collection of Hydrangeas — plants 
so easy to increase that I think our greenhouses ought 
to contain greater varieties. These four struck me as 
good : Hydrangea quercifolia, H. macrocephala, H. hor- 
tensis, and H. chinensis. 

Variegated Maple is grown a good deal at Florence, 
and, when skilfully used and much pruned, it can be 
made a considerable feature in any large garden — mixed 
with dark evergreens, such as Hollies, Privets, Irish 
Yews, etc., as it has almost the whiteness of flowers at a 
distance. Cassia australis struck me as being a hand- 
some greenhouse evergreen. 

The garden was full of sunk tubs for watering, with 
pieces of stone and small plants round the edge. Con- 
volvulus mauritanicus is a plant to grow at home in con- 
siderable abundance ; it comes easily from seed, and was 
lovely in this garden in half shade under shrubs. Mine 
has lived out now three winters, its roots protected by a 
small shrub. It is also very pretty grown in baskets in 
the greenhouse. 

I was disappointed at seeing no Lilies growing in 
gardens in Florence, though plenty of the IAlium can- 
didum were sold in the market. How excellent is Mr. 
Stephen Phillips' line on a Lily garden : 'A tragic odour 
like emotion rose.' That is a complete description in 
words of the scent of some flowers, such as I had long 
sought for, but, I think, never found before. 

Apparently nothing in my first book really offended 
the reviewers, and perhaps even the public, so much as 
my non- appreciation of Virginia Creeper and Ampelopsis 
Veitchii. The remarks of one critic are typical of many 



JUNE 37i 

others : 'Very gently and respectfully we would say 
"Avoid the dictatorial attitude," and we would point our 
meaning by an ancient horticultural saying of the Mid- 
lands : ' ' Different people have different opinions — some 
like apples, and some like inions." Mrs. Earle, it seems 
to us, might well consider that occasionally others may, 
without being guilty of sin against art, admire that 
which revolts her sense of the beautiful. Frankly, her 
denunciation of Ampelopsis Veitchii hurt our feelings. 
But the dictatorial tone, the inability to recognise two 
sides to a question, is characteristic of even the greatest 
gardeners.' 

What I did not sufficiently explain is that it is not a 
plant that I condemn in itself, but what I do condemn is 
the placing of it in wrong situations, or allowing it to 
destroy architectural beauty. I have, under my own bed- 
room window, an ugly piece of slate roofing which this 
autumn was covered with a mixture of Virginia Creeper 
and Ampelopsis — the latter still green, the former one 
mass of ruby and gold. NothiDg could be more beauti- 
ful. But then it is growing where hardly anything else 
would grow, which is different to sacrificing a good south 
or west wall for this one week of beauty in the year. 

My objection to Ampelopsis Veitchii was certainly in- 
creased while in Florence, as it grew with the greatest 
profusion in every direction, and as a picturesque object 
(say, for sketching) the beautiful old Porta Romana was 
entirely destroyed and put out of tone, both with sky 
and earth, by being almost entirely covered with this 
terrible brilliantly green Japanese Ivy. 

June 27th. — Just before I left I went to see the Ric- 
cardi Palace, in the Via Cavour. The chapel I thought, 
as I suppose everyone does, one of the most interesting 
gems in Florence ; it is so wonderfully fresh in colour. 
The frescoes are by Benozzo Gozzoli. We are told his 



372 MORE POT-POURRI 

mind was less exalted than Fra Angelico's. That may 
easily be. His pictures are quite mundane, but the cos- 
tumes and the landscape backgrounds are thoroughly 
interesting, and the luxurious grandeur in these wonder- 
fully preserved frescoes give one a thrilling idea of the 
times. I was especially interested in the garden back- 
grounds. The Roses were quite cultivated Roses and 
very large. The Cypresses were faithfully painted as I 
have seen nowhere else; some were quite natural, others 
again were cut in rounds and shapes, probably the ear- 
liest representation of topiary work in the world. The 
flower beds were cut out in the grass, with hedges such 
as one sees to-day round any modern hotel. The extra- 
ordinary preservation of the frescoes is owing to their 
having been in the dark. Now the owners have made a 
large window, and a Philistine proprietor years ago cut 
a door through the principal fresco. The portraits of 
the Medicis on horseback, and the splendid clothes, 
figure, and horse of the eastern Emperor, impressed 
me with the feeling it was quite the finest thing of the 
kind I had seen. 

I suppose everyone climbs up to the top of the 
old Palazzo Vecchio and sees that old Medicean room, 
once the library, where the huge white doors of the 
book -cases are panelled with the most beautiful old 
maps. If I remember rightly, America is represented 
by the island of Cuba ! The colour of them is splen- 
did. Even modern maps would make a beautiful decora- 
tion for a white room, I think. German modern maps 
are exceedingly well coloured, and some representing 
seas and currents have a mystery and poetry quite 
their own. 

The comparatively new public road on the San 
Miniato hill, which Mr. Hare calls 'an enchanting drive,' 
struck me as extremely well done, very well planted, and 



JUNE 373 

all the plants well blocked together. In a few more 
years, when it has lost its 'new' look, it will be very- 
beautiful, even from a gardener's point of view. The 
variety of Oleanders — from snow-white to darkest red — 
were the best I have ever seen. 

The interior of San Miniato is one of the most cu- 
rious, old, and impressive churches in all Florence; but 
the strange burial-ground, dug apparently into the rock, 
is to my mind pathetically ugly. The utter bad taste of 
it is not on so large a scale as the famous cemetery at 
Genoa, which, to the very utmost, carries out Mr. Rus- 
kin's words on modern Italian sculpture : ' Trying to be 
grand by bigness and pathetic by expense.' 

Who that has ever been there does not share that 
pining for the beauty and sunshine of the South ? It is 
common to so many natures, and almost universally ex- 
pressed by the poets. The return need of the South for 
the strengthening influence of the North I have rarely 
read in prose or poetry. Mrs. Browning seems to have 
realised that there is such a need : 

'Now give us lands where the Olives grow, ' 

Cried the North to the South, 
'Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow 
Blue bubbles of grapes down a vineyard-row!' 

Cried the North to the South. 

'Now give us men from the sunless plain,' • 

Cried the South to the North, 
'By need of work in the snow and the rain 
Made strong, and brave by familiar pain.'' 

Cried the South to the North. 

'Give lucider hills and intenser seas,' 

Cried the North to the South, 
'Since ever by symbols and bright degrees 
Art, child-like, climbs to the dear Lord's knees,' 
Said the North to the South. 



374 MORE POT-POURRI 

'Give strenuous souls for belief and prayer,' 

Said the South to the North, 
'That stand in the dark on the lowest stair, 
While affirming of God, "He is certainly there," ' 

Said the South to the North. 

'Yet oh! for the skies that are softer and higher,' 

Sighed the North to the South ; 
'For the flowers that blaze, and the trees that aspire, 
And the insects made of a song or a fire,' 

Sighed the North to the South. 

'And oh! for a seer to discover the same,' 

Sighed the South to the North ; 
'For a Poet's tongue of baptismal flame, 
To call the tree or flower by its name,' 

Sighed the South to the North. 



JULY 

A night journey — Dawn in the train — Passing Chamb6ri — A water- 
cure near Geneva — Amiel and his 'Journal Intime' — The New 
Museum at Geneva — M. Correvon's garden — An afternoon at 
Bale — Boecklin ' again — Cronberg and the ' Palmengarten' — 
Planting shrubs to secure an especial effect — The cultivation of 
Alpine Strawberries — Eeceipts. 

July 1st. — I left Florence on one of the last days of 
June, with oh ! such a sad heart and a feeling I should 
never see it again. I am so conscious, as I said before, 
of the wisdom of spending the rest of my life at home 
and foregoing the pleasures of travel, as with my nature 
long absences unfortunately diminish the pleasure and 
interest I take in my own concerns, and regret at what I 
leave behind comes between me and my happiness when 
I am away. The weather had been wet, and directly the 
sun was obscured the temperature was, if anything, 
rather too cool. I do love a night railway journey, be- 
cause of the chance it gives one of seeing that most 
wondrously lovely effect of nature which we so seldom 
do see — this growth of the famous 'more light,' Goethe's 
last words — the triumphal march of the coming on of 
day. I determined to enjoy it in spite of the presence 
of seven Italians, one more "than the carriage was in- 
tended to hold, who got in at Genoa at four o'clock in 
the morning and never ceased talking amongst them- 
selves. 

It is not only the beauty of the growing light, but 
the mysterious human awakening, the early smoke that 
coils from some cottage chimney, the opening window, 

(375) 



376 MORE POT-POURRI 

the man who goes out to his work along the road — every 
little incident seems to be full both of the poetry and 
pathos of life. In a tiny volume lately published, of 
remarkable verse by A. E., 'Earth Breath and other 
Poems,' the poem called 'Morning' expresses in part 
my feeling : 

We had the sense of twilight round us ; 

The orange dawn lights fluttered by; 
And thrilling through the spell that bound us 

We heard the world's awakening cry. 

We felt the dim appeal of sorrow 

Rolled outward from its quiet breath, 

To waken to the burdened morrow, 
The toil for life, the tears for death. 

And out of all old pain and longing 
The truer love woke with the light. 

We saw the evil shadows thronging, 
And went as warriors to the fight. 

The last line is to me an especially true note. Indif- 
ference, blindness, despondency, all these I hate ; but 
to meet life with courage, both for oneself and others, 
that must be the real aim. But courage is rather 
strength than happiness. 

Professor Blackie said somewhere, ' There is nothing 
fills me with more sorrow occasionally than to see how 
foolishly some people throw away their lives. It is a 
noble thing to live ; at least, a splendid chance of play- 
ing a significant game — a game which we may never 
have the chance to play again, and which is surely 
worth while to try to play skilfully ; to bestow at least 
as much pains upon it as many a one does on billiards 
or lawn tennis. But these pains are certainly not 
always given, and so the game of life is lost, and the 
grand chance of forming a manly character is gone, for 
no man can play a game well who leaves his moves to 



JULY 377 

chance, and so, instead of fruitful victories, brilliant 
blunders are all the upshot of what many a record of 
distinguished lives has to present.' All this from a 
night journey. It was broad daylight as we came 
down the beautiful flowery slopes of the Cenis in a 
luxurious French corridor carriage, so superior in every 
way to the Italian one we had just left. 

The English used to be accused of being the great 
eaters of Europe when I was young. I do not think 
that is the case now. In our carriage was a middle- 
aged couple — I should imagine, brother and sister — 
and evidently, as is so often the case with other couples, 
the gray mare was the better horse. She travelled with 
curious deliberation ; first she wrapped up both the 
hats in beautiful bright Italian silk handkerchiefs, to 
preserve them from dust. Her black hair, I suppose 
she thought, could be cleaned without expense. She 
frizzled up her curls and wiped her dark, fat, ugly face. 
She then produced a huge powder-puff, and powdered 
her face well all over. The man bore all this patiently ; 
he was thin and bald, and much more refined -looking 
than she was. He placed a black silk cap on his head. 
Then she opened a large dog -basket filled with a most 
dainty luncheon. Sandwiches, folded up in a beauti- 
fully clean, damp napkin, began the meal. Then were 
eaten large slices of meat and bread, mugs full of rich 
milk, cheese (of which she must have eaten eight or ten 
ounces), and all this with a resigned calm, as if she 
were performing a sacred duty which she owed, not to 
herself, but to society. The meal wound up with beauti- 
ful ripe Apricots — grown, I am sure, on their own 
Lombardy estate — and a home-made plum cake, like an 
English one. The remains, which were carefully packed 
up, would have fed a carriageful, and, I confess, made 
me feel quite greedy, my humble bread and cherries 



378 MORE POT-POURRI 

having nearly come to an end. When they had eaten 
their fill, superior peppermint lozenges were produced 
by the lady and shared by her companion ; not one, 
but six or seven were slowly consumed in the same 
resigned, sad way. This was to assist digestion, I pre- 
sume. Calm sleep then supervened to both, and their 
labours were over. In the seat opposite me was a man 
in the dress of an ecclesiastic, with a face that might 
have belonged to Rousseau's famous Savoyard vicar — a 
calm, intellectual face, that would have looked well 
carved in the mellow, amber -coloured marble of a 
Florentine tomb. My travelling companions — exter- 
nally, at any rate — were strong contrasts ! 

I never can pass through this valley of Chamberi, 
with its beautiful mountains all around, without a 
strange thrill at the thought that here Rousseau lived 
and botanised for so many happy years in his youth, or 
calmly worked in the garden of his early love, Mme. 
de Warens. Her house is still shown. Some years ago 
I spent a day in Chamberi, but only saw this house from 
the top of the castle tower, my companions preferring 
other sights to the romantic pilgrimage I wished to 
make to -the abode where lived those two, who little 
dreamt they were weaving one of the strangest romances 
that was ever publicly confessed. 

I saw at that time in the museum a curious example 
of how, in certain stages of civilisation, the same cus- 
toms prevail. They have there a large collection of 
curiosities taken from the remains of Lake villages ; 
amongst other things, beautiful pins and brooches, like 
those found in Scotland and Ireland. My attention was 
attracted to a half moon- shaped piece of wood scooped 
out and delicately carved and ornamented. I asked the 
custodian what it was. He pointed to a small photo- 
graph placed beside it, which represented a Japanese 



JULY 379 

woman lying on the floor with a piece of similar wood 
under her little head. Perhaps without this photograph 
from the far east the use of this primitive pillow from 
the Lake villages might have remained an unexplained 
curiosity. 

I spent a few days in the neighbourhood of Geneva, 
to see some friends in one of the water-cure establish- 
ments so common now on the Continent — part hotel, 
part cure — very different from those primitive water- 
cures started in the early half of this century by 
Preissnitz, at Graafenberg. I picked up on an old 
bookstall, some years ago, a curious little pamphlet by 
Bulwer Lytton, called 'Confessions of a Water Patient.' 
He described how he had found his faith in the system 
strengthen, but he shrank from the terrors of a long 
journey to Silesia, ' the rugged region in which the 
probable lodging was a labourer's cottage, where the 
sulky hypochondriac would murmur and growl over a 
public table spread with no tempting condiments.' It is 
the modern luxury of hotel life which, I think, now 
militates so much against all these cures. The patients 
have two large hotel dinners of doubtfully wholesome 
food, and lie about all day on luxurious chairs. This is 
very different from the return to primitive life, an 
essential part of the cure in the old system, and which 
in modern days has been better practised by l'Abbe 
Kneipp than by any other that I have heard of. Now 
luxury and self-indulgence hold the poor modern, 
civilised patients in their grip wherever they go, and 
often they return no better than they went, in spite of 
douches and baths innumerable. 

I must confess I found it rather trying coming from 
Florence to a hydropathic establishment in Switzerland. 
Illnesses, and especially what, for want of a better name, 
are called nerve -illnesses, are from their very obscurity 



380 MORE POT-POURRI 

quite extraordinarily depressing, and bring prominently 
forward the eternal injustice of nature. Looking out of 
my window at the gravelled yard and the heavy grove of 
trees gave me the feeling that I might be in a private 
lunatic asylum, or even in a prison, though I have never 
lived in either. The thought may have been specially 
presented to my mind from the remarkable poem which 
appeared last year, 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol,' for, 
looking up out of my window, I too could see over the 
opposite roof that little square of blue which suggested 
these two verses : 

I never saw a man who looked 

With such a wistful eye 
Upon that little tent of blue 

Which prisoners call the sky, 
And at every wandering cloud that trailed 

Its ravelled fleeces by. 

He did not wring his hands, as do 

Those witless men who dare 
To try to rear the changeling Hope 

In the cave of Black Despair : 
He only looked upon the sun, 

And drank the morning air. 

Looking down in the early morning, I saw the 
patients, in various quaint costumes, hurrying to the 
morning douches. One, a middle-aged man, could not 
walk unless he pushed a large brown basket-work per- 
ambulator before him. He did not lean on it, and was 
very cheerful, but apparently it steadied his nerves, and 
with it his legs obeyed his wishes and he walked 
perfectly. Many people were, of course, quite well — 
merely accompanying the invalids. All these bathing- 
places strike me as being deadly dull and tiresome for 
those who are well, but foreigners seem to be much 
more patient about spending their holidays in health 



JULY 381 

resorts than we are, for they look upon absolute idleness 
as the correct thing, and are content to spend their 
waking hours in talking. This can be noticed any day 
at seaside places in France. To my mind, the perfect 
holiday for people in health is change of scene and 
occupation and interest ; certainly not what is called 
'rest,' which means sitting out all day long, doing abso- 
lutely nothing but chattering to people you have never 
seen before and will never see again. Without the 
object of being a companion to those we love, I can 
imagine no greater trial. 

When I could stand the feeling of being surrounded 
by invalids no longer, I used to get outside the place 
and walk by the deep -cut cliffs, rather than banks, of 
the roaring, rushing river. The land was losing all its 
wildness, and was being built over ; but nothing can 
ever alter those steep -cut sides, which in old days might 
have been the scene of the following poem : 

By the hoof of the wild goat uptossed 
From the cliff where she lay in the sun 

Fell the stone 
To the tarn where the daylight is lost — 
So she fell from the light of the sun, 

And alone. 

Now the fall was ordained from the first 
With the goat and the cliff and the tarn, 

But the stone 
Knows only her life is accursed 
As she sinks in the depths of the tarn, 

And alone. 

Oh ! Thou who hast builded the world, 
Oh ! Thou who hast lighted the sun, 
Oh ! Thou who hast darkened the tarn, 

Judge Thou 

The sin of the stone that was hurled 

By the goat from the light of the sun 

As she sinks in the mire of the tarn 

Even now — even now — even now ! 



382 MORE POT-POURRI 

Beautiful, bright Geneva struck me as hard and ugly, 
after the mellow softness of Florence. I had hoped to 
have seen many interesting places in the neighbourhood, 
the homes of those who are familiar to us as our own 
relatives. Ferney I have never seen, nor Coppet, nor 
the house on the south side of the lake where Byron 
lived, close to the one taken by the Shelleys and Clair 
that memorable summer after Byron's separation from 
his wife and before the birth of Allegra. Is it not 
all told in one of the best, most complete, and most 
interesting biographies of our day, Dowden's ' Life of 
Shelley ' ? George Eliot spent a happy time at Geneva as 
a girl, and I would gladly have seen 18 Rue des 
Chamoines, where she lived and rested and enjoyed her- 
self with kind friends. And last of all, there is the quiet 
corner where Amiel worked and lived and wrote. Some 
time after his death a very interesting review (by Lucas 
Malet) of Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation of Amiel's 
'Journal Intime ' appeared in the ' Fortnightly Review ' 
for May or June, 1896. She alludes several times to the 
short biography of Professor Amiel by Mile. Berthe 
Vadier, which was published in Paris, and thus describes 
the place where he lived : ' His windows overlooked a 
well -filled flower garden ; the walls of it were draped 
with Ivy and Virginia Creeper, above which rises the 
ancient college of Calvin, while through a side opening 
he could see the trees on the Promenade Saint -Antoine, 
and the Russian church, its gilded cupolas backed by the 
purple hillside of the Grand Saleve.' Amiel's biographer 
says : ' II etait tou jours beau.' Lucas Malet adds : ' The 
dome of his head is very fine, reminding one in height 
and purity of curve of the head of Shakespeare, or of 
the modern writer who in looks so curiously resembles 
him — Dante Rossetti. But with the brow all likeness to 
the great or lesser poet ceases : the eyes and lower part 



JULY 383 

of the face lacking the glorious audacity and robustness 
of the first — we accept the witness of the Stratford bust 
and picture, rather than that of the fancy portrait in 
Westminster Abbey — equally with the sensuous heavi- 
ness that so mars the beauty of the second. For Amiel's 
face and head belong to a type not infrequent in French 
Switzerland, combining a certain largeness of ground 
plan with an almost pinched delicacy of detail. Refine- 
ment rather than strength is its characteristic : a head 
in porcelain rather than a head in granite.' I copy this 
excellent description, as it exactly fits a large number of 
student men of our own day. Lucas Malet goes on to 
say : 'And truly — though perhaps at the risk of seeming 
a little fantastic — we may say that in Amiel's face there 
is more than a hint of that singular temper, the pre- 
dominance of which in his printed utterances, whether 
in prose or verse, prevents their rising into the first rank 
of excellence. Both are a trifle artificial ; marked by 
something of over -civilisation and over -intellectuality. 
He wants body, so to speak. He is utterly deficient in 
what Mr. Henry James has so delightfully called "the 
saving grace of coarseness." In his case there is too 
complete a severing of those cords which bind us to the 
lower creation. Not only ape and tiger, but song-bird 
and sea -wind, have died in him, as they must always run 
the chance of dying in highly educated persons — of 
dying so effectually indeed that such persons .forget the 
very alphabet of that mysterious, primitive language to 
speak in which is not only the instinct of external 
nature, but the highest achievement of art.' Do we not 
all know people whom this description fits as admirably 
and completely as it doubtless did the Geneva professor, 
though they may but partly share the intellectual gifts 
which made his journals so interesting a portrait, not 
only of himself, but of the type of human being whom he 



384 MORE POT-POURRI 

represents — always aspiring and never satisfied, always 
working and producing comparatively little result ? 

During my stay I was not able to see any of these 
houses, as I had wished, and only once did I stand in 
the town on the ever wonderful bridge where the Rhone, 
as blue as melted sapphires, tears through the arches. 
In spite of endless scientific investigations, no explana- 
tion has ever been arrived at to account for the wonder- 
ful colour of the Rhone water. A few miles below the 
town, as we all know, the Arve rushes down from the 
valley of Chamounix, muddy in tone and charged with 
solid matter, and it colours for miles the blue waters of 
the Rhone. At length the Arve gains the mastery, and 
the Rhone, once polluted, does not recover its purity 
before reaching the sea. So remarkable a freak of 
nature, however often one has heard of it, strikes one 
afresh with its obvious allegory. 

Instead of all the things I wished to see in Geneva, 
the one and only thing I did see was the new museum 
with its newly planted grounds, a short drive from the 
town, and called (goodness knows why) Ariana. The 
building is commodious and light, and well suited for its 
object. It is a pleasure to visit a museum with all the 
windows wide open ; they are generally such airless, 
stuffy places. But one cannot help being severe on 
modern buildings on one's return from Italy. Local 
museums always have an interest, and one generally 
finds something one could have seen nowhere else. In 
this case it was a most instructive and comprehensive 
collection of old china, very well arranged, named, and 
dated. Several specimeus and manufactories were quite 
new to me — which is not astonishing, as I know so 
little about china. A tea service with butterflies and 
beetles on a white ground, catalogued 'Nyon, 1780 to 
1800,' struck me as exceedingly pretty. Also some 



JULY 385 

Charlottenburg of 1790 was rough in shape, but beauti- 
fully painted, clear and clean. The only really ugly 
china was that of about the middle of this century. 

There were some curious old pictures, interesting 
rather chronologically and historically than from any 
artistic reason. A picture of the ' Roi de Rome ' at about 
twelve years old, stated to be by Gerard, was curious, 
and if authentic would be a joy to a Napoleonic collector. 
Otto Marcellis and Auger Meyer, two insect and leaf 
painters of the end of the last century, interested me, 
as their oil-paintings resembled a curious water-colour I 
have, on a black ground, done by the well-known flower 
painter, Mme. Mariani. 

I spent two charming afternoons with the famous 
Alpine gardener, Monsieur H. Correvon. Though at 
this time of year his garden near Geneva was almost a 
dry desert, yet it was full of interest to the true gar- 
dener. M. Correvon said that gardening, as we 
understand it, had made but small way on the continent 
of Europe, and that almost all of his clients were 
English. Such observations as I have been able to 
make quite confirm this assertion. A talk with him is 
alone well worth any trouble, and no garden-lover 
should fail to visit a man who has done so much to keep 
together and cultivate the mountain flora of Europe. I 
still hope I may go some spring on purpose to see his 
Alpine garden, which is high up on the edge of the 
snows of the great St. Bernard, a huge rockery cul- 
tivated under natural conditions. I cannot imagine 
anything more interesting to plant-lovers. M. Correvon 
is the author of many charming little books on Alpine 
and herbaceous flowers — ' Fleurs Colorizes de Poche 
dans les Montagnes de la Suisse,' 'Les Orchidees 
Rustiques' (very enlightening to the ignorant on the 
numbers of these plants), and ' Le Jardin de l'Her- 



386 MORE POT-POURRI 

boriste,' carrying on to our day the theory of the health- 
giving virtues of medicinal plants, and often quoting 
l'Abbe Kneipp. M. Correvon is a poet, too, and can 
express as well as feel, which is not given to all of us. 
This is what he says on Linneeus' humble flower : 

Sur les flanes de nos monts il est une fleurette 

Au suave parfum 
Qui fuit l'6clat du jour, derobant sa clochette 

Aux yeux de l'importun. 

Sa patrie est au loin, sous un ciel plus severe, 

Pres des glaees du Noi'd, 
Et nos torrents ont vu la charmante 6trangere 

Croitre aussi sur leur bord. 

Ses jolis rameaux verts s'etalent sur la mousse 

De nos vallons alpins, 
Formant, pres des vieux troncs sous lesquels elle pousse, 

Le plus beau des jardins. 

II semble qu'un reflet d'aurore boreale, 

A survivre obstin§, 
S'attarde et se melange a la teinte d'opale 

De la fleur de Linne. 

I have tried in many places for years to grow this 
plant ; it does not die exactly, but it pines and looks 
sad, and has never once flowered with me. 

In some gardens round Geneva I saw several fine 
specimens of Hemerocallis fulva. The kind sold by 
nurserymen generally is the one figured in the ' English 
Flower Garden,' and slightly double. This probably 
makes them rather shy flowerers, and in England they 
are usually seen in mixed flower borders. The flowers 
of those I saw in Switzerland were quite single, proba- 
bly a strong -growing type. They were planted in 
small, rather sunk beds in gravel or grass, in quite full 
sun, and copiously watered. They were one mass of 



JULY 387 

flower in July, and really most effective, handsome 
plants — quite as effective as the Cape Agapanthus, so 
much commoner with us. They would look showy on 
lawns, and would, I think, do well in tubs, if they got 
sun and water enough. 

The lovely yellow Day Lily, which flowers earlier, has 
done well with me in full sun, never moved at all, but 
mulched and watered in dry weather at the flowering 
time. 

There are several so-called new varieties of Hemero- 
callis, and all seem worth growing when they can be 
made really to succeed ; but, though apparently coarse- 
growing plants, they must be fed, and in a shrubbery in 
this soil they would hardly make healthy leaves. 

The shrubberies round about the villas in the 
neighbourhood of Geneva were quite as badly pruned — 
often all on one side, and as much choked up — as ours 
in England, or more so. All that the inhabitants seem 
to care for is what makes dense shade, which, of course, 
they need more than we do. A large Privet, called 
Ligustrum sinense, was flowering very well, and is 
effective and worth growing in villa gardens, in spite of 
its rather disagreeable smell. It is a good flowererin 
July, a rare quality among shrubs. 

July 8th. — I carried out my wish and remained a night 
at Bale, resisting the greater convenience of the station 
hotel for the old, famous, and handsomely rebuilt post- 
house of ' The Three Kings,' with its balconies over the 
rushing, splendid Rhine. To the ignorant this river 
looks as if its water-power were stupendous ; as a fact, 
it cannot even be used to make the electric light for the 
town, the level of the river varies so immensely. 

Time was short and the weather wet, so I only saw 
the museum or picture gallery, which was what I had 
come to see. Bale to me meant two things — Erasmus 



388 MORE POT-POURRI 

and Boecklin. It was at Bale that Erasmus lived and 
died. Froude's lectures on ' The Life and Letters of 
Erasmus ' had so recently brought that memorable time 
vividly before me ; and they enable us to look ' through 
the eyes of Erasmus at all events as they rose, with the 
future course of things concealed from him. This is 
the way to understand history. We know what hap- 
pened, and we judge the actors on the stage by the light 
of it. They did not know.' Holbein's portrait of 
Erasmus is intensely interesting, and much more beauti- 
ful than the one at Hampton Court, by the same painter, 
of this thin-lipped, intellectual, sensitive 'Trimmer' of 
the Middle Ages. Froude says : ' In early life death 
had seemed an ugly object to Erasmus. When his time 
came, he received it with tranquility. He died quietly 
at Bale on July 12, 1536, and was buried in state in the 
cathedral.' The last words of Froude's last lecture 
are : ' I have endeavoured to put before you the char- 
acter and thoughts of an extraordinary man at the most 
exciting period of modern history. It is a period of 
which the story is still disfigured by passion and preju- 
dice. I believe you will best see what it really was if 
you will look at it through the eyes of Erasmus.' It is 
not always so easy to see through the eyes of wisdom, 
especially for those who are passionate and prejudiced. 

With regard to the typical pictures of Boecklin 
bought by his native town, I must confess my first 
impression was one of disappointment, in spite of their 
great power. His large figure -pictures of mermaids 
and mermen, fighting centaurs, etc., though in a way 
striking and remarkable, are to me positively ugly, both 
in colour and form, their only redeeming point being 
the beautiful cloud effects. In skies he seems never to 
fail. But there is one small picture of exquisite beauty, 
which reaches the height of the Todten -Inset, called 



JULY 389 

'The Sacred Grove' — a deep, dark Ilex wood, just like 
those I had lately been seeing near Florence. On the 
right a sunlit plain or valley was only indicated, and the 
light seemed to beat upwards, as in nature. Along the 
dark wood came a white -robed procession of worship- 
pers. On the left was a tiny stone altar, on which burnt 
the sacred fire, the smoke rising straight up into the 
absolutely still evening air. It was a beautiful picture 
— a thorough example of Mr. Ruskin's description, in 
one of his Oxford lectures, of landscape painting. He 
says : ' Landscape painting is the thoughtful and 
passionate representation of the physical conditions 
appointed for human existence. It imitates the aspects 
and records the phenomena of the visible things which 
are dangerous or beneficial to men ; and displays the 
human methods of dealing with these, and of enjoying 
them or suffering from them, which are either exemplary 
or deserving of sympathetic contemplation.' 

On my return home, I found a criticism of M. Arnold 
Boecklin's work in the 'Revue des Deux Mondes' for 
November, 1897, by a fellow-countryman of his, M. 
Edouard Rod. He describes how admiring crowds 
came from all parts of Switzerland and the adjoining 
countries, as if for a pilgrimage, to see the loan collec- 
tion of Arnold Boecklin's paintings, brought together 
that year and exhibited on the occasion of his having 
attained the age of threescore and ten. Many strangers 
came, somewhat doubtful as to the admiration to be 
bestowed on a painter almost entirely unknown out of 
Germany and German Switzerland. But the display 
seems to have convinced all that the work showed 
wonderful power and originality, executed in a novel 
manner. He was born rich and became poor, and for 
years his art seems to have had a hard and uphill fight 
with the world that did not appreciate him, and poverty 



39Q MORE POT-POURRI 

that dogged his steps from Rome back to Bale. At last 
he went to Munich, where the distinguished novelist, 
Paul Heyse, seems to have held out to him a friendly 
and helping hand. Must one believe that success is 
necessary to an artist? The fact is that Boecklin 
never really became himself till his individuality was 
recognised. His best works all belong to this latest 
period, and his admirers hope for him an illustrious old 
age. M. Edouard Rod adds : ' In looking at his later 
works I thought, what a beautiful thing is old age when 
it remains healthy, brave, and laborious. I thought of 
those luminous evenings that sometimes are the end of 
glorious summer days.' Boecklin' s work will be all the 
more interesting in the days that are to come, because it 
is singularly devoid of French influence. In a closing 
sentence of an admirable article on the Millais Exhibi- 
tion, Mr. Claude Phillips says: 'A vast wave, starting 
from France as a centre, is now more or less rapidly 
spreading itself over the whole expanse of the civilised 
globe, enveloping even us, who, with a wise obstinacy, 
most strenuously interposed our barriers of race and po- 
sition as a defence. If it continues to advance, steady 
and resistless as heretofore, will there not, before the next 
century has spent half its course, be practically but one 
art ? ' But, as time goes on, will not individuality always 
assert itself, and may we not hope for Boecklins in the 
future who will struggle and be free of all schools, even 
the French? 

July 12th. — After Bale I came back once more to 
Cronberg. Nothing is so interesting, next to one's own 
garden, as the gardens one knows well, belonging to 
one's friends, especially when they have very different 
situations and soil. At Cronberg the soil is very strong 
and tenacious, and bakes into a hard crust, about as 
different to my Bagshot sand as can be imagined. In 



JULY 391 

all I say or recommend, it is most important to remem- 
ber that in stiff, heavy soils, everything that grows well 
with me would do badly and require a perfectly different 
cultivation. The amateur should always recognise that 
when things do badly it is probably because of some 
mistake in cultivation, and that it is always worthwhile 
to try some other method. 

I went for the first time to the famous ' Palmen- 
garten,' at Frankfort, which, in its way, is really 
beautiful, and a very well-kept, interesting public 
garden — half pleasure garden, half botanical. The 
greenhouses are clean and orderly, and arranged in 
much better taste than they would have been at home. 
There is much more attempt at grouping foliage plants, 
Mosses, Ferns, etc., than one generally sees. The same 
with the outdoor planting ; though artificial and formal, 
it was done with considerable thought and originality, 
the beds being thoroughly carpeted to keep away weeds, 
which in that style of gardening is the only possible 
plan. The colour contrasts were good; a brighter, hotter 
sun than ours, together with much watering, perfects 
this kind of garden. I found planting of effective 
groups in the grass was a distinct feature in gardens 
about Cronberg, and better done than I have ever seen 
in England, save in very exceptional cases. It is an art 
that can rarely be understood by gardeners, as I think 
it requires a certain amount of real art -training to be 
able to imagine effects, both of form and colour. A well- 
planted White Variegated Maple ought to be in every 
garden, but it should not be allowed to get large and 
coarse. A contrast should be planted near it in the 
shape of broad -spreading leaves of some strong- 
growing, dark-foliaged plant. 

A much more delicate mixture, is a small red -leaved 
Japanese Maple and the Spircea Vlmaria, the common 



392 MORE POT-POURRI 

British Meadow-sweet. In strong soils this is a lovely 
combination on grass. In this kind of planting, it is 
most important to remember that if two spiral or two 
bushy things are planted together they interfere with 
the grace of form which is aimed at. In the just 
mentioned plants the small red Maple would stand out 
strong from the grass, and would represent massiveness 
of form and colour. The well -grown specimens of the 
Spirgea — sure to do well, as they are wild plants — repre- 
sent the grace of spiral growth and light, soft, white or 
cream colour. I find Eucalyptus Ounnii the hardiest of 
all the gum trees, and most especially pretty in colour 
and form for this kind of gardening ; and it is also good 
for picking, as it lives well in water. These contrasts 
may be carried out in endless variety, even in small 
gardens. 

When in Germany I was much struck by a green- 
house full of the healthiest tree and winter -flowering 
Carnations I have ever seen. The gardener told me that 
the secret of the entire absence of injured leaves and 
spots from rust was, that from July onwards, whether 
they are in pots or planted out, he syringed them once a 
week with the following mixture, which is also good for 
many other plants that are often blighted, especially 
Hollyhocks and Madonna Lilies : 

Mixture for Killing Carnation Disease.— (1) Two 
pounds of vitriol (copper) ; (2) four pounds of lime, 
fresh slaked ; (3) twenty -seven gallons of water; (4) 
two pounds of sugar. (1), (2) and (3) should be mixed 
together till no longer blue, but clear. Then mix the 
sugar with the rest. Syringe with an insecticide every 
week in the early afternoon. The syringing should be 
done quickly and finely. The ordinary garden syringe 
with a fine rose does quite well. 

Here is the real Bordeaux mixture, slightly different 



JULY 393 

from the last receipt, used throughout the whole of 
France against the phylloxera on the Vines ; it is also a 
cure for the Potato disease : 

Bordeaux Mixture.— Dissolve three-quarters of a 
pound of carbonate of copper in a little warm water ; 
place it in a vessel that will hold six gallons of water. 
Slake half a pound of freshly burnt lime and mix it 
with the water so that it is about the thickness of 
cream. Strain it through coarse canvas into the solu- 
tion of copper. Then fill up the vessel with water. 

With these two receipts, it seems to me possible to try 
endless experiments on plants in any way affected by 
disease or rust. I shall certainly try it on Humea elegans 
when the plants begin to go off. For a few years I gave 
up growing this charming annual, the disease always 
making its appearance. I cannot bear being beaten 
by a blight. 

Everywhere on the Continent I find abundant 
supplies of what used to be called Wild Strawberries, 
the cultivation of which is receiving the greatest atten- 
tion. The soil at Cronberg, being strong, is very good 
for growing Strawberries. When I arrived last year the 
main crop was just over, but the cultivated Alpines 
appeared in large quantities at every meal. These 
improved Alpine Strawberries last all through the sum- 
mer and late on into the autumn. I never can under- 
stand why this class of Strawberries is so much neglected 
in all English gardens. They are rather troublesome to 
pick, and have to be done with clean hands, as they 
come to table without their stalks. 

In the 'Horticultural Journal' for January, 1899, there 
is a most interesting article by the great improver of the 
whole family of Alpine Strawberries — M. Vilmorin — 
which will do away with any excuse of not understand- 
ing their cultivation. But I will not quote from it, as 



394 MORE POT-POURRI 

anyone can get the number of the 'Journal ' who is suf- 
ficiently interested in the subject to wish for the last 
word. Up to the present, I have never been successful 
in producing fruit in any sufficient quantity to make the 
growing of these Strawberries seem worth while, but I 
mean to try, with improved knowledge, to see if it cannot 
be done even on this sandy soil. A neighbour of mine 
has been most successful ; but a vein of clay runs 
through his garden, which is a helpful point, not to 
mention his greater knowledge and experience on the 
subject, having previously grown them in France. He 
kindly wrote out for me the system which he practises 
in the growing of this most useful and healthful little 
fruit, called the ' Improved Alpine Strawberry ' : 'To 
obtain these large and abundant, it is necessary to grow 
them on young plants (certainly not more than three 
years old) and plants originally grown from seed. The 
fruit degenerates rapidly if grown on runners from an 
old plant. Select the best seed. I grew mine from Vil- 
morin's No. 17,239 — fraisier des quatres saisons ll Berger" 
— 0.60 centimes per packet. This is cheaper than your- 
self selecting, maturing, and preparing the seeds, which 
probably would mature less thoroughly here than under 
the hot summer sun in France. Sow in March, in a 
shallow box or pan under glass, well watered, in soil as 
follows : One half of thoroughly well -rotted leaf -mould, 
one quarter of sand, one quarter of light loam. Cover 
with a glass, as usual, until they begin to grow. Very 
moderate heat. Prepare, in a well -sheltered border ex- 
posed to the sun, a strip of soil two and a half feet wide. 
Mix in plenty of well -rotted manure from an old hot- 
bed with the light loam of the open border. Plant the 
young seedlings in a row down the middle of this strip 
about five inches apart. Water them well, and shade 
them for a few days till their roots have taken good hold 



JULY 395 

of the ground. Then they will grow rapidly and pro- 
duce large leaves and strong runners, which must be 
laid out across the piece of ground on either side of the 
plants. Any runners beyond this first break should be 
cut off. The runners and the plant are left to grow 
together till about September, when the offsets will 
have rooted and grown, and the strip of soil will be 
covered with rich leaves and strong, healthy young 
plants. In winter, or early next March, prepare the bed 
in which they are intended to fruit : light loam with 
fair quantity of old leaf -mould or rotted old hotbed 
manure. There should not be more than four rows in 
one bed without a small path, in order to facilitate the 
cropping and the cutting -off of runners later on. The 
rows should be fifteen to eighteen inches apart, and in 
these rows plant, in March, the rooted runners of the 
seedlings, with as good balls as you can get. They will 
begin to bear about July, and will go on bearing until 
the frost comes in October or November, if they have 
been kept well watered in hot weather, and the runners 
trimmed off. In November cut off any remaining run- 
ners, mulch them well, and they will stand all through 
the winter. The second year they will bear, from May 
to November, good, large fruit about an inch long and 
half an inch across. They should be gathered with clean 
hands and allowed to drop off their stalks into the 
basket. If they do not drop to-day, they will next day 
or the day after, as they should be quite ripe. They will 
stand plenty of sunshine if they are watered in propor- 
tion to the heat of the weather. The fruit -bearing 
stems, in the best kinds, are strong and stand up above 
the leaves, so that the bloom coming on may be in full 
light and warmth. The leaves should never flag. Treat 
the bed the same way in the next winter, mulching, etc. 
This is the result: First year, sowing and producing the 



396 MORE POT-POURRI 

plants ; second year, a good half -crop, July to Novem- 
ber ; third year, a spring crop and autumn crop. The 
fourth year the autumn crop will not be so large ; but if 
they are sown every year, as they should be, a subse- 
quent sowing will be bearing its first autumn crop. It is 
possible to try a late summer sowing to crop the follow- 
ing autumn ; the runners must be taken off in the same 
way. Although the plants bear any amount of frost, a 
short, light frost during blooming time will turn the yel- 
low centres of the flowers black, which means no fruit 
there. It is well, therefore, to be able to protect the beds 
by tiffany or bracken fixed between two laths. It is well, 
also, to have some natural shelter against the north and 
northeast winds.' This last sentence is a most useful hint 
for any Strawberries, and I shall certainly adopt it, as my 
first crop is constantly destroyed by these spring frosts. 

While in Germany I saw beautiful beds of these 
Alpine Strawberries bearing profusely. The gardener 
told me that the way he managed them was to strike the 
runners off the young plants early in August and plant 
them for the winter under a wall, water well till rooted, 
mulch for the winter, and leave in the same place till 
April. Prepare a bed then in full sunshine with plenty 
of good cow -manure. Take up the young plants from 
under the wall ; plant them in the bed a foot apart, 
alternating the next row ; mulch again, and water 
copiously while the plants are flowering. Pick off all 
runners except those required for propagation. 

The only real difference between this and the former 
receipt is that the first one prescribes the constant sow- 
ing and taking runners from the young plants, whereas 
the German gardener, apparently, took his runners from 
older plants. This difference would be quite accounted 
for by the difference between a soil naturally suited to 
Strawberries and one that is not. 



JULY 397 

Last year I heard of an American way of growing 
Strawberries, a man in New York having made a large 
fortune by inventing the following method : A petroleum 
barrel is made clean by burning it out. Holes, about 
two inches wide, are drilled into it in alternate rows 
from base to top, at intervals of about six inches in all 
directions. The barrel is then raised on bricks or 
stones, ample holes having been bored in the bottom of 
the cask for drainage. The bottom is filled with crocks 
and broken pots, and then a layer up to the height of 
the first holes is filled in with good mould. The Straw- 
berry runners, well rooted, are planted by drawing the 
crown of the plant through the hole and spreading out 
the roots. Then fill up with soil till you reach the next 
layer, and so on up to the top. The top is not filled to 
the very rim, so as to admit of rain soaking down, and 
to hold the watering and liquid -manure soaking which 
it requires in the spring. A small drain -pipe should be 
let in, down the middle of the barrel, to ensure the water 
and liquid -manure reaching the lower plants in sufficient 
quantity. I am bound to own that my gardener says 
the cask did not ripen well last year ; but I was not 
here, so I cannot say what was the reason. I suspect it 
was that the moisture did not penetrate sufficiently into 
the barrel. I have planted two more tubs this autumn 
in the same way with 'Viscountess' and 'Royal Sov- 
ereign,' and shall await results. It is just possible there 
is not sun enough in this country to ripen them grown 
in this way, though I do not believe it. The advantages, 
if successful, would be great economy of ground, the 
fact that you can water without fear of drawing up the 
roots, that no straw or cocoanut fibre is required to keep 
the fruit clean ; and I imagine, grown in that way, the 
birds would not touch the fruit. 

I saw two pretty decorations for a luncheon -table in 



398 MORE POT-POURRI 

Germany. One was : four baskets painted white, with 
high handles and sprays of any small mixed flowers 
that do not fade quickly tied to the handles, the baskets 
well piled up with common summer fruit — Strawberries, 
Currants, Raspberries, Cherries, Gooseberries — each in a 
separate basket, and a small vase with the same mixed 
flowers in the centre. 

The other — a pretty, daylight table decoration — was a 
vase in the middle, filled with blue Cornflowers (which 
of course grow wild in Germany), standing out on a 
ground -work of Maidenhair. There were small vases 
round with wild yellow three -fingered Trefoil, or any 
other yellow wild flower, such as Buttercups. Between 
the dishes of fruit were laid on the table sprays of 
Maidenhair, Cornflower, and yellow flowers together. 

Receipts 

Timbale Napolitaine. — To be served either in a 
silver casserole or in an open French high pie -crust, 
shaped like a flower -pot, and filled while baking with 
dry peas to keep it in shape. Boil a small quantity 
of medium -sized macaroni; drain it well. Take two 
sweetbreads, scald and trim well, parboil, and cut into 
regular pieces about half an inch square. Make a good 
brown sauce (not too dark), to which add two or three 
spoonfuls of concentrated tomato puree, some good fresh 
mushrooms cut in dice or strips, some truffles or morels, 
and tiny little quenelles of chicken breast (if you have 
any cold chicken to use up). Put the sweetbreads into 
this thick sauce. Mix all well together, let it stew 
gently for a few minutes, then finish your macaroni in 
the usual way with cheese, only using far less butter 
than for plain macaroni. Now fill the silver casserole or 
the pie-crust by putting alternate layers of macaroni 



JULY 399 

and of the stew. Finish at the top with a little layer of 
sauce and truffles, and serve very hot. 

The remains of this Timbale, if the sauce has been 
kept thick and concentrated enough from the first, can 
be made into excellent croquettes or rissoles by being 
cut up quite small, with hardly any of the sauce mixed 
with it. Shape as croquettes, roll in egg and bread- 
crumbs, and fry. 

Poulet a l'lndienne.— Boil a large fowl in thin 
chicken or veal stock, with two or three onions. When 
done, take these out, strain the stock (which ought to 
look quite pale and clear), cut the fowl in pieces, cover 
with leaves of tarragon, add one or two to the stock, 
pour over the fowl hot, and serve. Boil a large cupful 
of Patna or Italian rice, strain, and dry. Make apart, 
while the fowl is cooking, a curry sauce with onion, 
butter, apple, stock, and curry powder (as described in 
my former book) , no flour. When the rice is ready to 
serve, stir enough of this sauce into it to colour it 
thoroughly without making it sloppy or greasy. I saw 
this once at a French luncheon party, and it was called 
Poulet a VIndienne, though of course it is not Indian in 
our sense at all. I have often done it successfully, but 
never had a receipt for it. 

Croutes of Ham and Beans.— Take four ounces of 
lean ham and grate or chop very fine. Put it into a 
stewpan with a little cayenne pepper and a spoonful of 
sherry; then dish it upon small fried croutes of bread. 
Dish round these a puree of broad beans or white haricot 
beans. Serve hot. 

Lentils. — Put a breakfastcup of Egyptian lentils into 
a saucepan, cover with about an inch and a half of 
water, boil very slowly for an hour. Heat half a tum- 
bler of the best olive oil in a small saucepan. Cut up 
very small half an onion, and fry it till yellow in the oil. 



400 MORE POT-POURRI 

Pour the whole on to the lentils, and let them boil 
another half -hour. Wash and pick a good handful of 
Italian rice. Dry on a cloth, and mix with the lentils 
when the rice is cooked. Add a little salt and pepper, 
and serve. 

French beans or scarlet runners well boiled in salt 
and water, slightly drained, and then mixed at once (all 
hot) with olive oil and very little vinegar, and eaten as 
a salad, are much better than when allowed to get quite 
cold. I think this is the same with all cold vegetables 
— beetroot, asparagus, beans, etc. Our weather so sel- 
dom admits of quite cold things being palatable. These 
receipts, however, are useless unless the olive oil is of 
the best. I always buy my oil and vinegar from Mrs. 
Ross, Poggio Gherardo, Via Settignanese, Florence. 

A Chocolate Pudding". — Take five ounces of fresh 
butter; four ounces of chocolate, grated ; four ounces of 
pounded sugar ; one ounce of flour. Mix these in a 
small pan with a cup and a half of milk. Boil till quite 
thick, and then pour into a dish with five yolks of eggs 
and some scraped peel of a lemon. Stir for half an 
hour. Beat up well the whites of the five eggs, and add 
them slowly to the rest. Smear with butter a conical 
tin mould, sprinkle with cinnamon ; pour in the mix- 
ture. Boil it for two hours in water. A cream sauce 
flavoured with vanilla should be served with it or poured 
round it. 

Norwegian Fruit Jelly. — Take two pounds of red 
currants and two pounds of raspberries (raw) rubbed 
through a cloth to extract the juice. Measure the juice 
in a good, clean wine-bottle, and pour it out. Put in the 
rest of the juice, and fill up the bottle with cold water 
so as to make two wine -bottles of liquid in all. Put 
this liquid in a large brass saucepan, and add half a 
stick of vanilla and three-quarters of a pound of lump 



JULY 401 

sugar. Put the saucepan on the fire. Mix five ounces 
of the best corn flour and two ounces of Groult's French 
starch flour {farine d'amidon) with half a bottle of cold 
water. When quite smooth, pour it gradually, stirring 
all the time, into the boiling fruit juice. Let the whole 
boil until it thickens. Rinse out a china mould or basin 
with cold water, pour in the mixture, and put it for 
some hours in a cool place or on the ice. Turn it out, 
and serve with cream. 

Cherries and Semolina.— Boil four pounds of good 
cherries in a quart of water till quite soft, then pass 
through a hair sieve. Put the juice back on the fire, 
with a piece of vanilla and half a pound of lump sugar. 
Let it boil for twenty minutes. Take a packet of 
French semolina ; drop in a sufficient quantity to 
thicken the juice, stirring all the time ; when this has 
boiled up, proceed as in the former receipt. Rhubarb 
might be tried in this way. 

Much the same sweet can be made in winter in the 
following way: A pint and a half of red wine, and a 
pint and a half of bottled fruit syrup. These must be 
mixed together and brought to the boil. Mix four 
spoonfuls of cornflour with a little cold syrup kept back 
for the purpose, and stir this into the boiling liquid. It 
is most important to keep stirring all the time. It must 
be boiled for fifteen or twenty minutes. 

Currants — red, white, and black — are excellent left on 
their stalks, well washed, and then dipped into the white 
of a very fresh raw egg, rolled in finely pounded sugar, 
and put for one minute into the oven to dry. 



AUGUST 

A Horticultural Show in August — The old Chelsea Physic Garden 
— Towns out of season — Flat-hunting in London — Overcrowd- 
ing flats — Marble better than tiles — Curtains and blinds — A 
long note on girls and young women. 

August 9th. — For the first time in my life, I went to 
a Horticultural Society Show at the Drill Hall, West- 
minster, in August. The interest centered chiefly in 
the new hardy Water Lilies which everyone with small 
ponds or lakes ought to try and cultivate, I think. 
There were a few new Lilies that I had never seen 
before ; but what particularly attracted my attention 
was an exceedingly good strain of my favorite Campan- 
ula pyramidalis, exhibited by the Syon House gar- 
dener, and flowered under glass. He afterwards gave 
me an interesting account of how he cultivates them, 
which I quote : 

' I am glad you liked the Campanulas, but I am 
sorry they were not quite as good as some I have 
shown in previous years, as we forced some of the 
plants, and they do not like much heat. There is no 
special way of cultivating the plants. Those you saw 
were sown early in April, ; 97, in pans in a coldframe, 
and pricked off end of May into boxes, potted up six 
weeks later into forty-eight pots, singly. Up to this 
they had been grown in a coldframe, but from July 
till October they were stood outside on ashes, but well 
watered. In winter we place rough boards round these, 
or stand in coldframes. Too much moisture is worse 

(402) 



AUGUST 403 

than frost, and very little water is given in midwinter. 
Early in March we place them in seven- or eight -inch 
pots, and stand in the open or on ashes to keep out the 
worms, potting in a good soil with a little manure, but 
as firm as possible, and they then flower the end of 
July or early in August. 

' The flowers are purer in colour if they are placed 
under glass when opening. We do not grow any plants 
over sixteen or seventeen months. I would advise sow- 
ing in March for flowering in following August twelve - 
mouth. Ours is a very fine strain — the Syon House 
variety — and a compact grower. I do not plant out at 
all for conservatory decoration. By planting out and 
lifting in spring, you would get larger plants.' 

I am quite sure these flowers can never be seen in 
anything like perfection except grown under glass when 
the flower is appearing. 

Not the least interesting sight was the variety in 
shades of blue — some very soft and delicate -looking, 
almost gray ; some a good china -blue. There were 
many more of the white ones, and I find them rather 
easier to grow. 

Another way of growing the G. pyramidalis, espe- 
cially any good colour you want to preserve, is to cut 
up the roots and repot small pieces. I do not think 
the plants will be as strong as those grown from seed, 
but it is less trouble. 

I was pleased the other day to read in the papers 
that the old Chelsea Physic Garden has been saved 
from being built over by the London Parochial Chari- 
ties. The garden was presented by Sir Hans Sloane to 
the Society of Apothecaries, on condition that fifty 
new varieties of plants should be grown in it and 
annually furnished to the Royal Society till the number 
amounted to two thousand. These gardens and the 



404 MORE POT-POURRI 

Botanic Gardens at Oxford are the oldest of the kind 
in England. The land at Chelsea was acquired by the 
Apothecaries as far back as 1674. Evelyn visited the 
Chelsea Gardens in 1685, and mentions that he saw 
there a Tulip tree and a Tea shrub. Here, too, it has 
been said, one of the first attempts was made to sup- 
ply plants with artificial heat, the greenhouse having 
been heated by means of embers placed in a hole in 
the ground. Poor plants ! they must have been rather 
smoke-dried, I fear. It was here, too, that Philip 
Miller, the 'prince of gardeners' — so styled by Lin- 
naeus — spent nearly fifty years. He managed the 
gardens from 1722 to 1771, during which period they 
attained a great reputation throughout Europe. Miller 
was the author of the much -admired 'Gardener's 
Chronicle.' 

August 14th. — Towns are never so pleasant as when 
out of season. Florence in June, and London in Au- 
gust, how immensely emptiness increases their charm ! 

Flat -hunting in London is more bewildering and dif- 
ficult even than house -hunting, so I was indeed lucky to 
find one with perfect views, very high up, with a lift, 
and just what I wanted in every way. I always have 
thought the garret was the nicest part of a London 
house. It has the best air and generally some sort of 
view. A high flat has all these advantages, and the lift 
does away with the fatigue of the stairs. A French 
landlady once said, when we had panted up her five 
stories to her airy apartment and complained a little of 
the pull up: ' Le cinquieme n'est au cinquieme que pour 
les monstres de la rue. C'est au premier pour les 
Anges ! ' One does feel nearer the sky, and the gulls 
fly by the windows in stormy weather. The cloud 
effects can be endlessly studied, and often smoke rather 
adds to than detracts from the beauty of sunsets, as Mr. 



AUGUST 405 

Euskin puts it in that beautiful chapter on the truth of 
colour in the first volume of ' Modern Painters' : ' When 
Nature herself takes a colouring fit, and does something 
extraordinary — something really to exhibit her power — 
she has a thousand ways and means of rising above her- 
self, but incomparably the noblest manifestations of her 
capability of colour are in these sunsets among the high 
clouds. I speak especially of the moments before the 
sun sinks, when his light turns pure rose-colour, and 
when this light falls upon a zenith covered with countless 
cloud -forms of inconceivable delicacy, threads and flakes 
of vapour which would in common daylight be pure 
snow-white, and which give, therefore, fair field to the 
tone of light. There is then no limit to the multitude, 
and no check to the intensity of the hues assumed. 
The whole sky from the zenith to the horizon becomes 
one molten, mantling sea of colour and fire; every black 
bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into 
unsullied, shadowless crimson and purple and scarlet, 
and colours for which there are no words in language 
and no ideas in the mind — things which can only be con- 
ceived while they are visible — the intense hollow blue of 
upper sky melting through it all, showing here deep and 
pure and lightless; there modulated by the filmy, formless 
body of the transparent vapour, till it is lost impercepti- 
bly in its crimson and gold.' All this, and indeed much 
more, can be seen now and again from the top of a high 
London house by those who have eyes to see and a heart 
to appreciate. There are other effects — white clouds 
sailing on pure blue, storm-clouds rising and dispersing, 
and (in autumn) the sun lying like a little gold ball on 
the mist, the lights glimmering through the fog in the 
streets below, which are in darkness, whilst we dress 
and breakfast without ever having to touch the switch 
which produces the magic light. One more evening pic- 



4 o6 MORE POT-POURRI 

ture is the new moon shining in at the windows, high 
up and above a long, graduated space of evening sky 
and a far, mysterious purple vista, half town -lights, 
coming through the darkness as in one of Whistler's 
harmonies, painted as he alone can paint such effects. 
The distance is cut off by the black roofs and gables of 
the houses opposite. 

Hitherto I have always moved from smaller houses to 
larger, which is comparatively easy. Changing from a 
large house to a small flat is the most difficult thing I 
have yet had to do. All the flats I have ever seen are, 
to my mind, spoilt by being so much overcrowded, and 
yet, in many cases it is for the preservation of property 
that the flat or smaller house is taken at all. To help 
the non- crowding of these small rooms, I got rid of as 
many superfluities as possible. I reduced the bulkiness 
and heaviness of curtains, and, where I could, made a 
broad hearth with no fenders at all. I think tiles and 
painted wood for fireplaces have been overdone of late. 
I hope we shall return to more marble and stone. A 
green Irish Connemara marble makes a beautiful hearth, 
and this and other marbles could be adapted in many 
ways where tiles have been used. 

I find that many people have been puzzled by my ad- 
vice to have inner curtains and no blinds. When they 
are there, of course it is cheaper to keep the blinds. 
One friend wrote that she could not make up her mind 
to have no blinds, as she thought the little curtains at- 
tached to the sash looked so untidy when pulled aside, 
like a petticoat hung up. I do not think this at all, and 
have lately found two stuffs which are most useful for 
curtains in the place of blinds. One is green bunting, 
which does not fade, and is very cheap, but narrow. It 
can be got in several colours from Cayler & Pope, 113 
High street, Marylebone, and I dare say at many other 



AUGUST 407 

places. It is very pretty in white. The green looks 
well from the outside of the house, as does the red twill 
I recommended before. White cotton-twill sheeting also 
makes very pretty inner curtains. They are specially 
pretty with outer curtains of white muslin. This in a 
small room makes a very pretty effect, and there is noth- 
ing to fade or to detract from the beauty of plants, etc., 
inside the room. My friend who was afraid to use the 
small curtains said the only use of blinds is in case of 
death. It is for that very reason I should like blinds 
done away with. Drawing down blinds in cases of death 
seems such a foolish fashion, when in time of sorrow one 
wants the help of all the sunshine that can be had. I 
must own sash windows are difficult to manage with cur- 
tains. I 7nyself do not like them cut in two; but even 
then they are not so ugly as smart blinds edged with 
embroidery or lace. 

Many ask if white paint, especially on staircases, does 
not prove unserviceable. I think white paint knocks off 
less than any other, and there is no wear and tear on a 
staircase except on the carpet in the middle. It is very 
desirable to have a piece over at both ends of the stair- 
carpet, so that when it gets worn it can be shifted either 
up or down. This is a touch of economy beginning 
with expense, as it requires a little more carpet. I have 
never heard it suggested by the shopman who sells or 
lays the carpet. To return to paint, it is essential that 
white paint should be good, which depends entirely on 
using the very best white lead. This is perfectly well 
known in the trade, but it naturally costs more than the 
inferior qualities, and so is seldom used. I never use 
varnish except in London, as even the best varnish al- 
ways turns the paint yellow after a little time. I am 
obliged to own that, though very cheap in the first in- 
stance, my favourite whitewashed walls do seem ex- 



4 o8 MORE POT-POURRI 

travagant, as they are not pretty unless constantly 
renewed and kept spotlessly white, and that is what the 
holder of the purse-strings will rarely agree to. White- 
washed walls soiled by smoke look very unsatisfactory. 
A paper will look cleaner after sixteen or seventeen 
years of wear than whitewash does after two or three. 

August 29th. — Several of my young friends com- 
plained that the chapter headed ' Daughters' in my first 
book, though it sympathised with the woes of childhood, 
was addressed rather to mothers than to daughters. 
They say : ' We want a chapter about ourselves, on our 
own difficulties and trials, on love and marriage, and the 
proper conduct of life between seventeen and twenty- 
five.' So now, partly from memory of my own experi- 
ence (for I was a girl once), and partly from observing 
others, I am going to talk on these subjects as well as I 
can, only referring as before to the well-to-do classes, 
the only ones about which I know anything. Where I 
find that my own thoughts have been expressed by 
others, I shall deliberately quote ; and as these quota- 
tions will be from the writings of both men and women, 
some mothers may not think them suitable for the read- 
ing of very young people. 

So far as I have been able to judge, the first difficulty 
which most commonly presents itself to a grown-up girl 
is her position with regard to her mother, no matter how 
excellent that mother may be, and even when the girl 
remembers the devotion she bore to her up to the age of 
(say) fifteen or sixteen. When a girl is about this age 
a barrier seems often to arise between them, usually 
caused by some want of confidence on the girl's part. 
The difficulty, however, is only aggravated if the mother 
resents or is hurt by this reticence. George Eliot refers 
to this subject with Titanesque touches. She says : ' We 
are bound to reticence most of all by that reverence for 



AUGUST 409 

the highest efforts of our common nature which com- 
mands us to bury its lowest fatalities, its invincible 
remnant of the brute, its most agonising struggles with 
temptation, in unbroken silence.' But, on the other 
hand, the same author thus describes the downward 
career of one of her best -drawn characters : 'Tito had 
an innate love of reticence — let us say, a talent for it — 
which acted as other impulses do, without any conscious 
motive, and, like all people to whom concealment is easy, 
he would now and then conceal something which had as 
little the nature of a secret as the fact that he had seen 
a flight of crows.' Some natures are born so secretive 
and shy that it is a real difficulty to them to speak out 
or ask advice, so that they cannot learn in any way 
except from that exceedingly bitter source — personal ex- 
perience. I would advise the young to fight as much as 
they can against concealment. There is of course one 
subject which by its very nature can only live in privacy. 
We all go through the stage sooner or later of under- 
standing what love means, and we all think at the time 
there is only one thing in the world of importance — that 
our hearts should not be unveiled. But with genuine 
and open natures this passes, and they end very often by 
open confession later on of that which torture would not 
have drawn from them at the time. Why reticence, to 
my mind, is so bad is that it so quickly grows into de- 
ception, and the smallest events develop into something 
quite different from what they really were. 

Yet no one can recognise more than I do the neces- 
sity of some kinds of hypocrisy ; it is 'the respect that 
Vice pays to Virtue,' and a form both of truth and 
strength ' The Englishman kisses and does not tell, the 
Frenchman kisses and tells, and the Italian tells and 
does not kiss ! ' — so went the old saying. Admitting the 
facts, the concealment of the Englishman is the best. 



4 io MORE POT-POURRI 

When one is young, one thinks just the contrary, and 
people are very apt to say : ' If I have a passion, why 
should I hide it under a bushel? So long as there is 
no concealment there is no harm.' This kind of argu- 
ment may take people into very deep water. A parent 
of reserved nature rather encourages concealment in the 
children, and indeed thinks it 'beautiful,' forgetting 
that the children may inherit from the other side of the 
family a need for sympathy and the expression of affec- 
tion, and that these are as absolutely necessary to some 
natures as food for the body. In my experience, I can 
most honestly say that the people who have done best in 
life are those whose temperament has enabled them to 
talk out their difficulties with friends or relatives, and 
who have learned to ask advice. Advice should be taken 
to develop one's own judgment — and, as I said before, 
need never be followed. It is useful to understand how 
matters strike other people who are not personally con- 
cerned. The non -understanding of this is often the 
cause of a bad influence being exercised by one sex over 
the other. It is more easy to pardon faults than to for- 
give those who assume virtues they do not possess. 

The mere forming of one's trouble into words makes 
it seem lighter to bear. We have all sometimes, if not 
often, known the extreme worry experienced on waking 
because of some trivial thing we have done or left un- 
done, which disappears entirely or assumes its proper 
proportions after our morning bath. Talking out to a 
friend often plays the part of the bath. 

I can trace a change in my whole life from the kind- 
ness of a Jewish old maid to me when I was a precocious 
little monster of ten years old. We were at Leghorn 
during a fearful earthquake, and the hotel where we 
were staying, though not actually thrown down, was so 
shaken and injured as to be considered unsafe to live in. 



AUGUST 411 

This good lady took us all in, and was kindness itself 
to us. My heart went out to her with a genuine out- 
pouring of love and gratitude, and when we left, having 
observed my many little childish selfishnesses, she wrote 
me the following letter : 

1 My Dearest Theresa : — As I feel quite certain you 
really love me, you will listen with attention to the few 
remarks I have to make, and at the same time convince 
me of your affection by reading occasionally these lines 
in remembrance of me. Now, dearest, I must tell you 
that patience is one of the greatest requisites, not only 
for our own happiness, but for everyone about us. Be 
careful to keep that in mind. At meals (be you ever so 
hungry) do not show impatience ; look round and ob- 
serve whether those dearer than yourself have all they 
require, before you think of yourself. This will prevent 
your being selfish, which is of all things the most odious. 
Think first of your dearest mother, for rarely in health 
and never in suffering does she give one thought on her- 
self. Therefore you, my darling, have but to follow her 
bright example, and you will be an ornament to society, 
a pattern of good breeding, and an example to your 
infant sisters, who will look up to and listen to your 
affectionate advice. Remember that love towards all 
who instruct you is absolutely necessary, and patience 
and good feeling for the servants will make them both 
love and respect you. This is my affectionate advice to 
you, my dearest Theresa ; and whenever you feel in- 
clined to be impatient or selfish you will read this and 
remember me. 7 

To my mind, this letter is an absolute gem as regards 
the understanding of child -nature. There is no mention 
of anything that could possibly make the little being 



412 MORE POT-POURRI 

of ten feel her youth or the writer's age. There is no 
word of religion. Love terrestrial is the moving power 
throughout. The motive for life suggested in it is not 
exactly happiness, which none can command, but the 
regulating of one's life, with ambition as an object. 
The incorporation of eastern ideas into the West is re- 
sponsible for much of that spirit which attributes all 
evils to the will of God, as trials to be accepted with 
resignation rather than difficulties to be fought against 
and overcome, and, if possible, provided against before- 
hand. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof is a 
saying that has, I think, been twisted into many senses 
never intended. 

Advice, however, may be offered too young, and 
bear no fruit. I once heard a kind grandmother 
preaching unselfishness to a little boy of four or five : 
' No one loves selfish people ; you won't be happy if 
you are selfish.' And he, the rosy-faced little rascal, 
looked up and said, earnestly : 'Oh ! but, gran, that is 
not quite true ; for I am so selfish and so happy ! ' 

Many mothers prefer to remain in ignorance rather 
than find out that the tastes and views of their 
daughters are different from their own. If, as is 
sometimes thought, this difference is greater now than 
it used to be, I cling to my opinion that it is largely 
due to sending girls away from home for educational 
purposes. Freedom and a good education have many 
advantages, but the corresponding disadvantages should 
be faced when the plan is originally decided upon. 

Some years ago there came out a book, 'Le Journal 
de Marie Bashkirtseff , ' which made a considerable sen- 
sation at the time, and raised — so far as I could judge 
— a good deal of anger and irritation amongst English 
mothers of the day. It was accused of being strained, 
exaggerated, and morbid ; and so perhaps it is. One 



AUGUST 



4 J 3 



accusation, I believe, was true — that the heroine made 
herself two years younger than she really was, i.e., she 
begins the journal nominally at the age of twelve, 
whereas she was really fourteen. In spite of its faults, 
I believe this book will remain for all time a most use- 
ful introduction to the knowledge of that strange 
being — a young girl, say, from sixteen to twenty -one. 
Its exaggeration is that of a microscope, which reveals 
nature without distorting it. This constitutes its 
utility for all mothers who have girls growing up 
around them. 

A girl should bear in mind that it is quite possible 
she is a cause of considerable disappointment to her 
mother, and this possibility should be thought of 
humbly and affectionately rather than with resentment. 
For though, perhaps, it is due to no fault of her own, 
the disappointment is none the less real to her mother. 
She should do her utmost to make herself as pleasant 
in her home as she can. What elders expect from the 
young is a fair amount of willingly given assistance 
and unselfish cheerfulness. Few things, I think, con- 
tribute more to happiness in the home than a certain 
power of conversation ; and, if it does not come natur- 
ally to them, girls would do well to try and acquire it. 
Any moderately intelligent woman can learn 'to talk' ; 
and to be absolutely silent in society is not modesty, 
but a form of selfishness, for it casts a gloom over 
everyone present. The true greatness of individuals 
lies in their own hearts, and conversation is as much 
a question of kindness as of cleverness. Mr. George 
Meredith, in 'Beauchamp's Career,' describes delight- 
fully the charm of conversation in a girl. Of course 
all cannot have this, but all can try for it : 'Renee's 
gift of speech counted unnumbered strings, which she 
played on with a grace that clothed the skill and was 



4 i4 MORE POT-POURRI 

her natural endowment — an art perfected by the edu- 
cation of the world. Who cannot talk ! But who can ? 
Discover the writers in a day when all are writing. It 
is as rare an art as poetry, and in the mouths of women 
as enrapturing — richer than their voices in music.' 
With young girls silence often becomes a habit from 
not being trained to join in the conversation of their 
elders — a fault in many English homes. But if a girl 
realises this is a mistake, she can get over it after she 
is grown up if she chooses. If, on the contrary, she is 
silent merely from being socially bored, she had better 
learn that a very simple remedy for boredom in society 
is to try and amuse others. There is sure to be some- 
one uglier or duller or older than she is, to whom she 
can devote herself. One of the chief uses of society is 
the constant self -discipline it imposes. Depend upon 
it, as George Eliot says, we should all gain unspeakably 
if we could learn to see some of the poetry and pathos, 
the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of 
a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes 
and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones. 
Such a thing is almost impossible to some girls, whose 
great amusement in life is to chatter. This has its 
charm to "many; but girls of this temperament should, 
on the contrary, try to cultivate the art of listening, to 
draw forth information from others, and to understand 
their attitude without forming too hasty judgments. 
'To communicate our feelings and sentiments is natural. 
To take up what is communicated just as it is communi- 
cated is culture.' A power to sympathise with others 
is one to be much cultivated, ever remembering it has 
to be paid for. 

For he who lives more lives than one, 
More deaths than one must die. 



AUGUST 415 

Happiness and cheerfulness were not at all cultivated 
by serious -minded good people in my youth, who were 
much affected by the teaching, even if not under the 
influence, of the Quakers and Wesley. To be sad was 
almost considered a virtue. The High Church move- 
ment began the change, as I remember it, against the 
gloom of the Low Church teaching. The practical 
sense of the present day is now fighting the morbid ten- 
dencies, which have taken a hold on so many, reflected 
from the writings of Ibsen and Maeterlinck. Those not 
naturally of a happy temperament should cultivate hap- 
piness from within, not artificially assume it. 

A lecture on 'Happiness,' given by Miss Lucy 
Soulsby in 1898 (published by Longmans, Green & Co.), 
is an excellent example of the teaching to which I refer, 
and would, I think, be helpful to many a girl. 

A very common grievance to-day between mothers 
and daughters is that the girls while still young refuse 
to go out into society at all, feeling how tiresome and 
unprofitable it is. This is all very well if the girl has 
mapped out her fate, and knows exactly what sort of a 
life she is going to lead ; but if she is merely drifting, it 
is only a form of selfishness, and rather a foolish one. 
Until life is really settled, the more varied and open to 
change it can be kept the better. After marriage, I am 
sure the more people stay at home the better for ten or 
fifteen years. 

The state I have referred to of more or less antago- 
nism between mother and daughter ought not to cause 
the amount of distress that it often does. Time, the 
great healer, constantly rights things again, and, as a 
rule, a girl never turns with more true love to her 
mother than just after her marriage. But my advice to 
girls under these circumstances is to be conciliatory and 
hide from others the irritation which often they cannot 



4 i6 MORE POT-POURRI 

help feeling. This I should recommend, even if from 
no higher motive than that the casual observer should 
not judge them too harshly. It is a rooted idea in the 
minds of many men that a bad daughter makes a bad 
wife. Was not Iago's strongest argument in the poi- 
soning of Othello's mind against poor Desdemona,' She 
did deceive her father marrying you' ? Not long ago I 
heard a young man say : ' I mean to marry for a 
mother-in-law — that is to say, I will never marry a girl 
who does not love her mother, nor would I marry a girl 
with a mother whom I thought unworthy of her love.' 

The French, of course, exact an outward expression 
of devotion from both sons and daughters unknown in 
this country, and I doubt whether our literature could 
produce a parallel passage to these opening lines of 
Florian's poem of ' Ruth' : 

Le plus saint des devoirs, eelui qu'en trait de flamme 
La nature a grave dans le fond de notre ame, 
C'est de ch6rir l'objet qui nous donna le jour. 
Qu'il est doux k remplir ce precepte d'amour ! 
Voyez ce faible enfant que le trepas menace ; 
II ne sent plus ses maux quand sa mere l'embrasse. 
Dans l'age des erreurs ce jeune homine fougueux 
N'a qu'elle pour ami des qu'il est malheureux ; 
Ce vieillard qui va perdre un reste de lumiere 
Eetrouve encore des pleurs en parlant de sa mere. 

Last summer, while waiting at a hot railway station 
and pondering in my mind how I could bring together a 
few notes that might help to solve some of the difficul- 
ties in girls' lives, I caught sight of a little yellow publi- 
cation on the bookstall, called ' The Modern Marriage 
Market.' It will be remembered that this consisted of 
four articles, by ladies, reprinted from magazines. I 
bought it at once, thinking that these ladies would prob- 
ably say what I wanted to say better than I could do it. 



AUGUST 417 

It was interesting to find that they severally took what , 
roughly speaking, might be called the four sides of the 
question, though the last article held the philosophic 
view that, as with most affairs of life, there is much to 
be said on all sides. Miss Marie Corelli holds up the 
little blind god Love as the only one worthy to regulate 
our lives and destinies. Lady Jeune is surprisingly 
satisfied with things as they are. Mrs. Steel prefers 
even eastern to western customs rather than ignore the 
importance of the future generation. Lady Malmesbury 
takes, as I have already said, a broader and more moder- 
ate view as regards the pros and cons of the various 
points at issue. Most people would agree that the mat- 
ter is one on which it is almost impossible to generalise, 
as so much depends on the enlightened bringing up of 
the girl herself. The whole question has been treated 
with stronger and more philosophic consideration in an 
essay called 'Marriage/ which I mentioned before, in Sir 
Henry Taylor's 'Notes from Life.' His essay has the 
additional advantage of being addressed to both men 
and women, which is certainly to be desired. He begins 
with a quotation from Webster's play, in which the 
Duchess of Malfy asks : ' What do you think of mar- 
riage ? ' and Antonio answers : 

'I take it as those that deny purgatory; 
It locally contains or heaven or hell ; 
There is no third place in it.' 

Sir Henry Taylor goes on to say that when he was 
young he did not agree with this, but that increase of 
years made him think Antonio's view the correct one. 
It seems to me that the last fifty years have wrought a 
considerable change in these matters. Nowadays mem- 
ber.; of society, so far as I am acquainted with them, 
consider it very inconsistent with their own dignity to 



4 i8 MORE POT-POURRI 

admit that marriage has turned out 'hell' for them, and 
see that a more philosophical attitude of mind enables 
them to expect less and really find a great deal of happi- 
ness on the lines of the quotation at the conclusion of 
Lady Malmesbury's article : ' Two are better than one ; 
because they have a good reward for their labour. For 
if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to 
him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not 
another to help him up.' In my youth I used to think 
that the gain in marriage was almost entirely on the 
woman's side ; but as I grow older I am inclined to 
think the advantages and the disadvantages to men and 
women are nearly equal. 

The crux of the whole position as regards the girl 
seems to me to be hinted by Lady Jeune when she 
implies that the mother should take the matter into her 
own hands — if not of making, at any rate of unmaking, 
marriages. And from this point of view, I think I have 
something to suggest. 

The questions that are constantly put to me on this 
subject by girls more or less young, prove to me that a 
great part of the difficulty arises from the injudicious 
ignorance in which they are allowed to grow up. Let 
us begin at the beginning. A young girl of eighteen or 
nineteen once said to me : ' What is the harm of kiss- 
ing ! ' And it is not altogether an easy question to 
answer if the girl herself has no feeling about it. When 
I was twelve years old my mother deliberately explained 
to me that for girls to kiss boys and men was childish 
and infra dig.; that grown-up women thought most 
gravely of kissing, and reserved it for those they loved 
very much, and who had asked them to marry them. 
This gradually puts the matter on a sounder basis. We 
have to be much older to understand that 'kisses are 
like grains of gold and silver found upon the ground, of 



AUGUST 419 

no value in themselves, but showing that a mine is near.' 
On the other hand, some girls may think, in perfect 
innocence, that a kiss means a great deal more than it 
really does, especially as it is generally taken, not given; 
and I have even heard of a girl of seventeen who 
thought she was so lowered by having been kissed by a 
man that she was bound to marry him to save herself 
from disgrace. So one girl takes it ; another may think, 
having once begun, there is no going back, and the 
onward course is the only possible one. To another, 
one accidental kiss may be only a great help and pro- 
tection, teaching her by fear to understand and distrust 
herself. This state of ignorance ought never to be in 
a girl who has reached a marriageable age. If the stop- 
ping of kissing is desirable at twelve, it is equally 
important that at fifteen or sixteen the mother or an 
elder sister, or some kind friend, should explain the 
facts of nature sufficiently to prevent forever the possi- 
bility of such distorted notions as to the facts of life. 
There are hundreds of ways of expanding and enlarging 
a girl's mind so as to increase, rather than diminish, the 
modesty which is her greatest safeguard, and certainly 
not the least of her attractions. Indeed, it is a favourite 
theory of mine that the instincts of life are apt to grow 
before their protector — modesty — which is more the 
result of cultivation and civilisation than particularly 
pertaining to what is natural. All prohibitions wound 
liberty and increase desire. We, none of us, can defend 
ourselves from a danger as to the very existence of 
which we are ignorant. If a girl is trained to under- 
stand that we are part of that great whole which is 
called nature, and that, in fact, our common development 
is shared by every flower that blooms, she is neither 
surprised nor shocked when further knowledge gathers 
round her as life expands. This, I believe, will serve as 



4 2o MORE POT-POURRI 

a very wholesome check against an overpreponderance 
being given to the romantic attitude so much advocated 
by Miss Marie Corelli. She describes marriage as the 
'exalted passion which fills the souls ' of a man and 
womau, 'and moves them to become one in flesh as 
well as one in spirit.' Mrs. Steel says, and I must say I 
agree with her, that this so-called 'exalted passion' is 
quite as often likely to lead to evil as to good. 

Whether girls realise it or not, certainly an immense 
number of them associate marriage with the very healthy 
desire of having children of their own. With a little 
further cultivation they will come to think of the man 
they wish to marry as the father of these unborn chil- 
dren ; and most women — even girls — can early discrim- 
inate between the man they enjoy dancing with, and the 
man they would like to be some day head of their house 
and father of their children. This develops what I hold 
to be of such great importance : that the girl herself 
should feel respect, or at any rate approval, of the man 
she thinks of marrying. There should be many solid 
reasons for entering into so important a partnership 
beyond the fact of love, even if that be ever so real. 
At the same time, I do not mean to imply that the man's 
moral standard in the past should necessarily have been 
the same as the woman's. The man who understands 
women extracts far more love from them — and so, in 
the end, makes them happier — than the man who knows 
little about them. I hold it to be a great mistake for a 
man to have that kind of fear of the girl he is engaged 
to, or of his wife, which leads him to think it is desir- 
able to deceive her. That seems the great danger of 
the tone of the present day, a woman expecting too much 
of men. 

One of the chief difficulties in talking or writing of 
love is that the word may be interpreted in so many 



AUGUST 421 

ways. To generalise on love is almost as difficult as to 
define it ; it means such different things to different 
people. Girls who read novels and poetry are apt to 
think that the fancy they feel for the first man they 
meet is the great passion which they will never get over; 
whereas, broadly speaking, strong feeling most often 
belongs to inconstant natures. As I think of it, real 
love never exists until it is tried by adversity ; but I am 
the last to deny that the real thing — however you define 
it — gives dignity and nobility to life, and makes it worth 
living. ' C'est bien a 1' amour qu'il en faut venir a toute 
epoque, en toutes circonstances, en tout pays, tant qu'on 
veut chercher a comprendre pourquoi Ton vit sans 
vouloir le demander a Dieu.' 
Thomas Moore puts it : 

When first the Fount of life was flowing, 

Heavy and dark and cold it ran, 
Every gloomy instant growing 

Bitterer to the lips of Man ; 
Till Love came by one lucky minute, 

Light of heart and fair of brow, 
And flung his sweetening cordial in it, 

Proudly saying, ' Taste it now.' 

Mr. Austin has a pretty definition of love : 

'Tis a fifth season, a sixth sense, a light, 
A warmth beyond the cunning of the sun. , 

Another element ; fire, water, air, 
Nor burn, nor quench, nor feed it, for it lives 

Steeped in its self-provided atmosphere. 

Doubt and fear were linked with it in very early 
days, for Plotinus says of love : 'It is worth the labour 
to consider well of Love, whether it be a god, or a devil, 
or a passion of the mind, or partly god, partly devil, 
partly passion.' Dr. South puts it: 'Love is the great 



422 MORE POT-POURRI 

instrument and engine of nature, the bond and cement 
of society, the spring and spirit of the universe. It is 
of that active, restless nature that it must of neces- 
sity exert itself ; and like the fire, to which it is often 
compared, it is not a free agent to choose whether it will 
heat or no, but it streams forth by natural results and 
unavoidable emanations, so that it will fasten upon an 
inferior, unsuitable object rather than none at all. The 
soul may sooner leave off to subsist than to love ; and, 
like the vine, it withers and dies if it has nothing to 
embrace.' Here are some lines by a French woman who 
feels the sadness of love : 

Car la douleur, helas ! est l'ombre de l'amour 
Et le suit, pas a pas, et la nuit et le jour ; 
Elle est menie a tel point sa corupagne fidele, 
Que l'amour a la fin ne peut vivre sans elle. 
Or s'il en est ainsi, qui pourrait me blamer 
Qu'ayant peur de souffrir je n'ose pas aimer ? 

This kind of cowardice, however, lasts a very short 
time, and the father's advice to his child, in George 
Eliot's poem, comes much nearer to what we, most of 
us, practise : 

' Where blooms, O my father, a thornless Rose ?' 

' That can I not tell thee, my child ; 
Not one on the bosom of earth e'er grows 

But wounds whom its charms have beguiled. ' 

' Would I'd a Rose on my bosom to lie ! 

But I shrink from the piercing thorn. 
I long, but I dare not, its point defy ; 
I long, and I gaze forlorn.' 

1 Not so, my child — round the stem again 

Thy resolute fingers entwine ; 
Forego not the joy for its sister — pain. 
Let the Rose, the sweet Rose, be thine. ' 



AUGUST 423 

Here is one more example of the many forms love 
takes — perhaps the noblest and the best: renunciation, 
no matter why or wherefor, but for duty's sake. It is 
one of Mrs. Browning's ' Sonnets from the Portuguese': 

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 

Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore, 

Alone upon the threshold of my door 
Of individual life, I shall command 
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 

Serenely in the sunshine as before, 

Without the sense of that which I forbore — 
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land 
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine 

With pulses that beat double. What I do 
And what I dream include thee, as the wine 

Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue 
God for myself, He hears that name of thine 

And sees within my eyes the tears of two. 

Tennyson's two lines everlastingly contain the true 
test : 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with 

might — 
Smote the chord of Self, that — trembling — pass'd in music out 

of sight. 

And now, to wind up the definitions of love, I will 
quote from two clever modern novels. Lucas Malet, in 
' The Wages of Sin,' attempts to describe the little god, 
who, we are told, still has something of the sea from 
which his mother, Venus, rose : 

' Love is quiet and subtle and fearless ; yet he comes 
softly and silently, stealing up without observation ; 
and at first we laugh at his pretty face, which is the face 
of a merry earthly child — but his hands, when we take 
them, grasp like hands of iron, and his strength is the 
strength of a giant, and his heart is as the heart of a 
tyrant. And he gives us to drink of a cup in which 



4 2 4 MORE POT-POURRI 

sweet is mingled with bitter ; and the sweet too often is 
soon forgotten, while the taste of the bitter remains. 
And we hardly know whether to bless him or curse him, 
for he has changed all things ; and we cannot tell 
whether to weep for the old world we have lost, or shout 
for joy at the new world we have found. Such is love 
for the great majority ; a matter terrestrial rather than 
celestial, and of doubtful happiness after all.' 

Mr. Mallock, in one of his clever novels, takes the 
matter further in a way that may console those who 
suffer from what appears such a wasted experience : 
'A serious passion is a great educator. But its work 
only begins when the pain it causes has left us. Strong 
present feeling narrows our sympathies ; strong past 
feeling enlarges them. Thus, a woman of the world 
always should have been, but should not be, in love. 
She should always have had a grief ; she should never 
have a grievance.' 

How true it is, even with the commonplace, glorified 
at the moment by their suffering : 'On a tant d'ame 
pour souffrir et si peu d'esprit pour le dire' ! 

While on this subject, for the sake of those who have 
not the pleasure of knowing Mr. Wilfred Blunt's poems, 
I quote three of his sonnets. First, because I think 
them beautiful ; and secondly, because they strike a 
note, very well recognised by those who have a knowledge 
of human nature, of the danger of too great suppression 
in youth. And I hold the sonnets up as a looking-glass 
to some, and those by no means the worst, that they 
may recognise what perhaps will be the trials and temp- 
tations of their own future. These poems describe very 
truthfully the phases many women go through, in a 
more or less degree, according to their kind — women, 
who, to all appearances, are just like everyone else, who 
lead their quiet, dutiful lives, in all sincerity and 



AUGUST 425 

honour. During my lifetime the fact has been much 
more recognised that the temptations and trials of 
women are not really so very different from those of 
men, though in our civilised life they come to them in a 
different way and often at a different age. This fact 
was, I believe, well understood in the old world, though 
covered over and distorted during the Middle Ages. 
Here are the sonnets, so rightly called the 'Three Ages 
of Woman' : 

I. 
Love, in thy youth, a stranger knelt to thee, 

With cheeks all red and golden locks all curled, 
And cried, ' Sweet child, if thou wilt worship me, 
Thou shalt possess the kingdoms of the world.' 
But you looked down and said, ' I know you not, 

Nor want I other kingdom than my soul.' 
Till Love in shame, convicted of his plot, 

Left you and turned him to some other goal. 
And this discomfiture which you had seen 

Long served you for your homily and boast, 
While, of your beauty and yourself the queen, 
You lived a monument of vain love crossed, 
With scarce a thought of that which might have been 
To scare you with the ghost of pleasures lost. 

II. 
Your youth flowed on, a river chaste and fair, 

Till thirty years were written to your name. 
A wife, a mother, these the titles were 

Which conquered for you the world's fairest fame. 
In all things you were wise but in this one, 

That, of your wisdom you yourself did doubt. 
Youth spent like age, no joy beneath the sun, 

Your glass of beauty vainly running out. 
Then suddenly again, ere well you knew, 

Love looked upon you tenderly, yet sad. 
'Are these wise follies, then, enough for you ? ' 

He said ; ' love's wisdom were itself less mad.' 
And you : ' What wouldst thou of me?' 'My bare due, 

In token of what joys may yet be had.' 



426 MORE POT-POURRI 

III. 

Again Love left you. With appealing eyes 

You watched him go, and lips apart to speak. 
He left you, and once more the sun did rise 

And the sun set, and week trod close on week, 
And month on month, till you had reached the goal 

Of forty years, and life's full waters grew 
To bitterness and flooded all your soul, 

Making you loathe old things and pine for new. 
And you into the wilderness had fled, 
And in your desolation loud did cry, 
' Oh for a hand to turn these stones to bread ! ' 

Then in your ear Love whispered scornfully, 
' Thou too, poor fool — thou, even thou,' he said, 
1 Shalt taste thy little honey ere thou die.' 

As grown-ups have such difficulty in understanding 
children, so do men and women find it hard to under- 
stand each other. Many a young husband, often 'one 
of the best,' deeply wounds and pains his wife quite 
unintentionally. It is a mistake to be too sensitive ; we 
must take people as they are. To most men it will 
always be as Coventry Patmore so prettily says : 

A woman is a foreign land, 

Of which, though there he settled young, 
A man will ne'er quite understand 

The customs, politics, and tongue. 

Owen Meredith translates the same thought in the 
reverse way, and with a more personal note, thus : 

Dearest, our love is perfect, as love goes ! 

Your kisses fill my frame and fire my blood ; 
And nothing fails the sweetness each bestows 

Except the joy of being understood. 

If for one single moment, once alone, 

And in no more than one thing only, this 

Moreover only the most trivial one, 

You could but understand me — Ah, the bliss ! 



AUGUST 427 

One of the ideas I find most common in women, and 
not only young ones, is that in starting a Platonic affec- 
tion with a man, sometimes at a certain sacrifice to 
themselves, they believe they do it for his sake, and that 
they are raising his moral nature. I am very doubtful 
whether the influence that comes through that kind of 
love between men and women, which in these days is 
called 'friendship,' ever works very much for good, as 
the influence savours of that old-fashioned education I 
have already condemned, which tries to make persons 
what we wish them to be, in contradistinction to making 
them understand that their only possible growth or 
improvement must come through their own self-develop- 
ment. Self-deception comes in when the woman per- 
suades herself that she is helping the man to do that 
which he could not do alone. This means that at best 
she is only a temporary prop, which never yet strength- 
ened anybody. The man who sees the position, and 
wishes to continue the 'friendship,' always uses the 
argument that the matter rests with the woman, but 
that if she gives him up things will be worse with him 
than they ever were before. In a publication I have 
already mentioned, called 'The London Year- Book,' 
there is a long poem on social life with the title ' Flagel- 
lum Stultorum'(The Flogging of Fools). In it I find a 
passage which once more lays bare the absurdity and 
false sentiment of such a position : 

. . . Woman's saddest mental dower 
Is not to know the limits of her power. 
And thus 'tis chief of woman's wild intents 
To know men's motives and their sentiments. 
Believe me, gentle sex, there's not a man, 
However mean his intellectual scan, 
But comprehends us better far than do 
The wisest, keenest, cleverest of you. 
The street-boy understands, upon my life, 
The Lord High Chanc'llor, better than his wife. 



428 MORE POT-POURRI 

So, when a woman turns her wits again, 
And hopes to modify the ways of men, 
I look to see, when faith and practice meet, 
Her tears bedew the pathway to defeat. 

Samuel Johnson, who married a widow twenty years 
older than himself, and quarrelled with her on his way 
to church, as he said he was not to be made the slave of 
caprice, and was resolved to begin as he meant to end, 
also said in after-life : 'Praise from a wife comes home 
to a man's heart.' I am sure this is equally the case 
with the wife. I have known many happy couples, but 
never one that did not beam with joy at real praise and 
appreciation from husband to wife, or wife to husband. 
Of course, however, all flattery must be given with 
discretion. 

Every girl, after marriage, should expect to be not 
understood, and to remember this is part of the mys- 
terious scheme of life which probably, on the whole, tends 
to good ; at any rate, it sharpens the interest of life. 
How far do we not go to find 'an undiscovered country '? 
Besides, if it is a trial it is lightened by remembering it 
is the same for all. Lucas Malet seems to think it is 
universal : 

' Do two human beings, especially of the opposite sex, 
ever fully understand one another ? Have any two ever 
done so, since the world began ? History and personal 
observation alike answer in the negative, I fear ; for, 
alas ! the finest and liveliest imagination stops short of 
complete comprehension of the thoughts, aims, predilec- 
tions of even the nearest and best loved. In truth, is 
not each one of us, after all, under sentence of some- 
thing very like perpetual solitary confinement in the 
prison-house of our own individuality?' 

One of the many pranks love plays us is that, when 
women love, one of their chief joys is to pour out their 



AUGUST 429 

•whole souls — past, present and to come — thinking that, 
because the man enjoys it and shows sympathy, he 
uuderstands ; but he does not a bit, and quickly forgets 
all she has told him. One reason why the early months 
of marriage are so often the least happy is that the two 
individuals expect each to understand the other. Mr. 
Lecky somewhere puts it that the art of a politician in a 
great measure is that of skilful compromise, and that 
someone whose name I forget 'was ever ready with the 
offer of a golden bridge or via media in order to reconcile 
effectually differences of opinion.' Does not this wisdom 
equally extend to married, and indeed to all family life ? 
If one of the two is always offering this golden bridge, 
I do not see how things can go very far wrong. I have 
known many married people of all ages — some older, 
some contemporary, and some younger — and my aston- 
ishment is that, on the whole, so few marriages have been 
real failures. What gives the impression of failure to 
the young is that they often judge of the happiness or 
unhappiness of married life from the generation of their 
parents. When people have been married for eighteen 
or twenty years, the conditions of their lives are entirely 
different from what they were in earlier years. Even if 
mutual devotion is still there, the display of it is sub- 
dued, and children instinctively assume that neither their 
parents nor their parents' friends were ever in love with 
each other. Also it is true that this middle life is fre- 
quently the most trying time in the marriage tie. Early 
love is over, time has developed the differences of the 
two individuals, and they have not yet attained to the 
more reasonable calm that often supervenes in later 
years. And yet this half-way time is just what is pre- 
sented to the critical eyes of the young as they are 
growing up, 

There is a love which never tries to call itself by any 



43 o MORE POT-POURRI 

other name, and which in time may grow into a very- 
real and noble friendship. This is perhaps the most 
perfect developeinent of happiness in marriage that can 
occur, but no doubt it is rare. 

Mr. Michael Field, in a little poem of great delicacy, 
shows how Cupid may sometimes heal the wound he has 
himself inflicted : 

Ah, Eros does not always smite 

With cruel, shining dart, 
Whose bitter point, with sudden might 

Rends the unhappy heart — 
Not thus forever purple stained 

And sore with steely touch, 
Else were its living fountain drained 

Too oft and over much. 
O'er it sometimes the boy will deign 

Sweep the shaft's feathered end : 
And friendship rises, without pain, 

Where the white plumes, descend. 

Mrs. Holland, in her charming letters, remarks on a 
saying of Mr. George Meredith's in ' The Egoist' : ' The 
scene in which, while his mother's death is imminent, he 
pictures his own, and wants to make Clara swear, is 
extraordinarily good, and that word of hers — "I can 
only be of value to you, Willoughby, by being myself " 
— contains, to my mind, the very gospel of marriage. 
So many marriages are more or less spoilt by the man 
wanting the woman to be his echo — not his friend.' 
Perfect friendship between men and women can only 
come, I think, after love — not before it. 

Jowett felt the extreme difficulty of friendship between 
men and women, and said : ' Hegel was right in con- 
demning the union of souls without bodies. Such 
schemes of imaginary pleasure are wholly unsatisfactory. 
The characters of human beiugs are not elevated enough 
for them. The religious ideal, the philosophical ideal, is 



AUGUST 431 

far better than the ideal of female friendship. If any 
pleasure is to be gained from this, it must be strictly 
regulated — never allowed to pass into love or excite- 
ment — of a noble, manly sort, with something of pro- 
tecting care in it.' 

Jowett also speaks of the sadder side of friendships, 
which we have all experienced. Though friendship is 
often represented as love eternal, it is not so at all, and 
needs as much, if not more, maintaining than love of 
another kind. 

He says : ' I do not know whether friendships wear 
out, like clothes — not if they are kept in repair, and are 
not too violent. Then they last, and are a great comfort 
in this weary world.' 

As I am known to be a strong advocate of marriage, 
girls often say to me : ' Do you mean that we are to 
marry somebody who wants to marry us, whether we 
really like them or not?' To this there seems to me 
only one answer : ' If you are perfectly certain that you 
like one man better than anybod} r else, you must get 
over that before you can marry another. While this 
strong feeling lasts, and to my belief it will last only so 
long as, at the back of everything, there is some hope, 
I would advise you not to marry anyone else — in fact, 
under the circumstances, to think of it would be revolt- 
ing.' Of course this is the same for men and women. 
When this feeling has died down to a memory, almost 
the most real, and yet the most unreal fact in one's 
whole life, then I think a girl should try and make her 
future by keeping herself for the best type of man who 
may wish to marry her, not expecting to be ever again 
— at any rate, in her youth — blindly in love. 

A common saying, and one upon which I have seen 
many people hang their lives, is Tout vient d qui salt 
attendrc. This is the version current in England. The 



432 MORE POT-POURRI 

correct French proverb is Tout vient d point d qui sait 
attendre, which, however, does not alter the sense. I 
have always considered it one of the most untrue sayings 
with an appearance of wisdom that there is. The only 
thing that surely comes to those who wait in this 
manner is death. Stating this opinion of mine the 
other day, someone else maintained that they took it in 
another sense, and that the crux of its meaning lay not 
in the word attendre, but in the word sait ('Everything 
comes to those who know how to wait ' ) . Skill in wait- 
ing, how to utilise to a given end all events that occur 
— such waiting brings about the coming of desired 
things. This was perhaps the original meaning of the 
saying ; it is certainly not the accepted popular inter- 
pretation of to-day. 

One of the virtues that I think is over -praised at all 
ages, in women especially, is constancy. Constancy is 
splendid, and much to be admired where two people are 
constant ; but where it is one-sided, and neither wanted 
nor appreciated by the other sex, I think it is rather of 
the same order as the non- changing of opinions in 
Blake's comparison in ' Heaven and Hell ' : ' The man 
who never changes his opinion is like standing water, 
and breeds reptiles of the mind.' 

Mr. Henry James says, with a strength that is almost 
crushing to us women, who cling with such persistency 
to our delusions : ' Illusions are sweet to the dreamer, 
but not so to the observer, who has a horror of a fool's 
paradise.' 

Shelley gives us strength by saying : ' The past is 
death's, the future is thine own. Take it while it is 
still yours, and fix your mind, not on what you may 
have done long ago to hurt, but on what you can now 
do to help.' 

Jowett, like most teachers of the young, placed a 



AUGUST 433 

great, it may be an excessive, value on success. It dis- 
tressed him to see his pupils making a mess of life. He 
wished them to take their part in the work of their 
generation with energy and effect. And yet one of his 
pupils writes, 'that it was Jowett, as much as anyone, 
who taught me that work, not success, made life worth 
living.' I quote this here in my chapter to young 
women, though it is intended for men, because it applies 
equally to women, and has a cheerful ring. Women's 
work is seldom crowned with success, but it is always 
there in some shape or another, ready for them to take 
up ; and if they do so the result, if there is none other, 
will at least be the strengthening and improving of 
their own lives, not by escaping their trials, but by 
learning to bear them better. 

Goethe says : ' Everything that happens to us leaves 
some trace behind ; everything contributes impercep- 
tibly to make us what we are. Yet it is often dangerous 
to take a strict account of it. For either we grow 
proud and negligent, or downcast and dispirited ; and 
both are equally injurious in their consequences. The 
surest plan is just to do the nearest task that lies 
before us.' 

I do not believe the state of mind which improves a 
woman's character ever comes without some intellectual 
effort. Most women of a certain type generally fly to 
music and desultory reading. Both these may be turned 
to serious use. Both may be only another form of the 
excitement which brings on reaction. Drawing and art 
were the saving of me. The creative work and the 
endless intellectual ramifications independent of — in 
fact, active against — a society life made drawing most 
useful to me. It does not much matter what the occu- 
pation is, so long as it is a mental gymnastic — some- 
thing which stretches and strengthens the mind, and 



434 MORE POT-POURRI 

consequently, I think, the character — something which 
takes us away from the accusation which George Eliot 
puts as follows : 'We women are always in danger of 
living too exclusively in the affections. And though 
our affections are perhaps the best gifts we have, we 
ought also to have our share of the more independent 
life — some joy in things for their own sake. It is 
piteous to see the helplessness of some sweet women 
when their affections are disappointed — because all 
their teaching has been, that they can only delight in 
study of any kind for the sake of a personal love. They 
have never contemplated an independent delight in ideas 
as an experience which they could confess without being 
laughed at.' Many will smile at my thinking it neces- 
sary in these days to make this quotation; but women's 
natures remain the same — yesterday, to-day, and for 
ever — and in certain phases of family life, and sur- 
rounded by the difficulties they entail, George Eliot's 
caution may be as much wanted by some young women 
as it was, more universally, forty years ago. Of course 
this is an entirely different thing from cramming chil- 
dren in early youth. 

There was nothing Jowett spoke of with so much 
bitterness as useless learning. ' How I hate learning ! ' 
he exclaimed. ' How sad it is to see a man who is 
learned and nothing else, incapable of making any use 
of his knowledge ! ' If this is true of men, is it not 
doubly true of women ? ' Is learning of any use ? ' he 
asks himself in one of his notebooks; and the answer 
is : ' Men are often or always unable to use it. It keeps 
men quiet, it clogs their efforts, it is creditable, it grati- 
fies curiosity ; but, for progress to mental improvement, 
learning without thought or imagination is worse than 
useless.' 

Goethe says : ' To the man of superficial cleverness, 



AUGUST 435 

almost everything takes a ridiculous aspect ; to the man 
of thought, almost nothing is really ridiculous.' 

I quote Jowett's strong condemnation of useless learn- 
ing, as it should put us on our mettle to learn in such a 
way as is most likely to be useful to fill the vacuum 
in our individual lives. But we must remember that 
Jowett lived in an atmosphere where learning for learn- 
ing's sake surrounded him, and the choice for him lay 
between well-directed and misdirected learning. I 
cling, however, to the idea that even somewhat useless 
learning is better than none, as the mere effort to learn 
does good. 

Mothers who like keeping their girls at home, and 
who see them content in a round of empty gaiety and 
excitement, often say : ' I am in no hurry for my girls 
to marry; they are happy and merry at home.' As 
men's bachelor lives often unfit them for marriage, so 
girls' lives are just as apt to do the same. They have 
to fit themselves for either marriage or old-maidism, 
and this is not done by prolonging unduly the life 
described in one line by La Fontaine : La cigale ay ant 
chantS tout F4te, etc. I remember my mother telling me 
that she had rather pitied a sad -looking, elderly girl at 
a Newcastle ball. Her partner remarked: 'Yes, no 
wonder, poor girl ! she is just recovering from her 
seven -and -twentieth disappointment.' This, of course, 
is an exaggeration, but it is characteristic of what may 
happen. After a certain amount of rushing about, a 
girl should herself realise that she can no more live on 
social excitements without deterioration than her body 
can thrive on sal -volatile. These remarks must always 
apply only to the large average. Women who are very 
attractive to men, as I said in my first book, have the 
ball at their feet, and, as regards the other sex, can do 
as they like. 



436 MORE POT-POURRI 

One of the best, noblest, and most useful old maids 
I have ever known once said to me : ' Why was I not 
warned ; why did no one remind me that to most women 
the chances do not come often, and that if we do not 
take them while we are young and have something to 
give, they do not come again, or not, at any rate, in the 
way, that, being older, we can accept ? ' 

When women turn to practical work, their high hopes 
are even more frequently disappointed than those of men 
— so many things weight their career, and the sense of 
failure is so frequently all that they reap. 

Have you thought, in your moments of triumph, 

Oh, you that are high in the tree, 
Of the days and the nights that are bitter — 

So bitter to others and me ? 
When the efforts to do what is clever 

Eesult in a failure so sad, 
And the clouds of despondency gather 

And dim all the hopes that we had ? 

Have you thought when the world was applauding 

Your greatness, whatever it be, 
Of the tears that in silence were falling — 

Yes, falling from others and me ? 
When the hardest and latest endeavours 

Appeared to be only in vain, 
And we've curtained our eyes in the night-time 

Indiff'rent to waking again ? 

Those who just miss their lives are those I pity. It 
seems to me that, of all bad teaching, the worst is to 
live only in the present, and try in no way to look to 
the future. 

Great sorrow or trouble, or loss of money or sickness, 
seem mercifully to preserve in some women certain qual- 
ities of youth which always remain attractive to men, 
even far on into middle life. Such misfortunes embalm 



AUGUST 437 

the qualities which the more ordinary experiences and 
pleasures of life destroy. Hence the unexpected and 
deep love episodes at an age when young people imagine 
such a thing is impossible. I remember quite well 
thinking at eighteen : 'What does it matter what 
women of thirty do?' Has not the world been lately 
given an example of this kind of love, for which it will 
eternally be the richer, in the Browning love-letters? 

That clever old French wit Chamfort, when he was 
reproached by a lady for not caring about women, an- 
swered : ' Je puis dire sur elles ce que disait Madame de 
C. sur les enfants : "J'ai dans ma tete un fils dont je 
n'ai jamais pu accoucher" ; j'ai dans 1' esprit une femme 
comme il y en a peu, qui me preserve des femmes comme 
il y en a beaucoup; j'ai bien des obligations a cettefem- 
mela.' I believe this kind of feeling keeps many, es- 
pecially cautious men, bachelors. This is a mistake, 
even from their own point of view, as these are the very 
men who are apt to fall victims to strong fancies when 
it is least wise for them to do so; and when they are on 
the borders of old age nature often has her revenge. 

I quote the Chamfort story to remind girls that good 
and sensible men require certain qualities in a woman 
whom they are thinking of marrying, and the reason 
why ordinary women are wise to consider twice about 
refusing to marry young is that perhaps that gift of 
youth is the only real thing they will ever have to give a 
man. When a dead level of mediocrity is reached, think 
how large is a man's choice, in England especially ! 
What is there in a woman of from thirty to thirty -five, 
who has knocked about the world, flirted and amused 
herself, given and taken all she could get, that should 
particularly make a man desire to marry her? Her 
freshness is gone, and her want of wisdom is often 
sadly apparent. 



438 MORE POT-POURRI 

We all know ' Punch's' advice to a man about to 
marry: 'Don't. 7 My advice is exactly the contrary. 
I say : Do, and don't wait till love of your bachelor- 
hood becomes too strong a custom. But except when 
very young, in which case the wild oats will probably be 
sown in an undignified way at the end of life, don't 
marry exclusively for what is called love. Let the heart 
and the head go together. For a woman, I think it is 
wise and often right to marry a man out of a sort of 
gratitude; it rarely answers for a man to marry for this 
reason a woman who has loved him not wisely but too 
well. 

I do not, for one, entirely condemn the French customs 
as regards marriage, though I believe they themselves 
are modifying them. When marriages are a question of 
reason and arrangement, I think it is better that such 
things should be managed by the elders than by the 
young people ; and if Englishmen of sense, when they 
make up their minds to marry, would take the help and 
advice of older women in seeking a wife, instead of 
going about with the hope that they may be fancy- 
stricken through the eye, I think more suitable mar- 
riages would be brought about, both as regards character 
and the very natural wish that the woman should have a 
certain proportion of money to help the joint manage. 

If a man who has married with his best judgment 
really cares to win the love of a girl after marriage, and 
takes pains to do so, he is sure to succeed — it is so 
natural for a good, affectionate woman to love her hus- 
band and the father of her children. 

Of course if a girl, with no sense of duty, merely 
sells herself to shine in the world, or for admiration and 
notoriety, which she thinks she will get better married 
than single, there is nothing to be said. Such things 
will always be; but a girl of that type is rare, and al- 



AUGUST 439 

most as mischievous single as married. The type of 
women that men often know most about was thus de- 
scribed to me by a man. He gave it as his deliberate 
opinion of women as he had found them : ' They are 
curious creatures ; in religion they can believe fifty times 
as much as any man. In love they only believe when 
they see and hear you ; as soon as your back is turned 
they scream and cry out you have abandoned them. 
Before you come they want you, when you have gone 
you have betrayed them, and they wonder that a man 
cannot bear that sort of thing for ever. Do you call me 
practical for speaking in this way? Very well, I am 
practical — and tell you what I know.' 

To go back to our original text, ' The Marriage 
Market.' The writers of all four articles seem to me 
too much under the impression that marriages are de- 
cided by the parents. So far as my experience goes, in 
England this is not the case. The girls take their lives 
in their own hands, though often with very insufficient 
knowledge. I have known girls who distrust to such a 
degree the feelings they may have for a man who is rich 
that they have actually refused him for fear they should 
be influenced by worldly reasons, everyone about them 
taking it for granted that they could never be so foolish 
as not to marry him. Many girls think of marriage 
solely as a means of escaping home duties, and assume 
that the duties will be lighter after marriage than 
before. 

I hear many people condemn the girl who 'marries 
for money'; and Marie Corelli vituperates against the 
women who 'sell themselves,' as she calls it. This 
seems to me unfair. Marriage and even love do not 
alter a nature ; and if a girl knows herself, and is quite 
well aware that she cares most for the things that money 
alone can give her, I think there is more of wickedness 



44Q MORE POT-POURRI 

if she makes the misery of the man she may like best by 
marrying him if he is poor, than in accepting the rich 
man if she can get him. I speak only of those whose 
standard of life is a low one. What is supremely 
idiotic, and distinctly the fault of the mother, showing 
a general want of training, is to imagine that when you 
marry a man for his money, whom you neither love nor 
admire, you are to have as well all the joys of life which 
no money can buy. The thing is ridiculous. There are 
few who, like Danae, can have god and gold together. 
Marrying for money or position may be a high or a low 
line; it is often the only vent for a woman's ambition. 
But if she does it of her own free will, thoroughly un- 
derstanding and facing what she undertakes, in nine 
eases out of ten she will carry it through and make the 
best of it. The person who 'has gained the world' is 
perhaps the one least likely to throw it away. It is the 
sentimental, warm-hearted, impressionable girl , who 
marries some man of the world not knowing what she is 
doing, who turns to someone else for consolation in bit- 
terness of spirit when she finds out her mistake. 

The tone of the day, as it is often represented in 
ephemeral literature, is that, so far as the moral life 
goes, the sexes should be equal. This has given rise to 
a very natural feeling amongst girls : that it is a matter 
of no importance which loves most or even first, the 
man or the woman. The stronger feeling on the wom- 
an's side is a phase of the relations between men and 
women which always has been and always will be; but 
the open acknowledgment of it is certainly much more 
common now than forty years ago. Nothing changes 
nature, and especially in youth it is natural for the man 
to take the initiative. The cultivation of pride in a 
woman is much to be desired, and would never deter a 
man who was really in earnest in his pursuit. In fact, 



AUGUST 44 i 

we all value what is difficult of attainment. I found 
this well expressed in an American periodical which I 
took up by chance last year ; it was called ' The Way of 
Man': 

There was many a Rose in the glen to-day 

As I wandered through, 
And every bud that looked my way 

Was rich of hue. 
But the one in my hand, 

Do you understand ? 
Not a whit more sweet, not quite so fair, 

But it grew in the breach of the cliff up there. 

A question I have frequently heard discussed by 
people who perhaps would be the very last to be them- 
selves in such a situation, is whether a woman with a 
'past' is bound to tell it to a man who has proposed to 
her, and whom she wishes to accept. A large proportion 
of these people who now go in for 'equalising' the sexes 
say, ' No ; she is not bound to tell,' and they argue that 
a man does not lay Ms past before a woman when he is 
engaged to marry her. It may be very unjust, but I 
cannot see that the cases are parallel. The woman fears 
that if she tells her story to the man, he will not marry 
her. If this is really the case, her acceptance of his 
offer is a species of fraud. To begin a life of partner- 
ship under such circumstances means that the woman 
puts herself on the level of a man who cheats his friend 
at cards or sells him a bad horse. The reason why the 
position of the woman differs from that of the man is 
due to that unwritten law accepted amongst civilised na- 
tions. The man who does net recognise this law will be 
unaffected by the confession of her past ; the man who 
does recognise it ought not to be deceived. 

I think most girls of to-day understand that there is 
a veiled side to many men's lives, and that a man's past 



442 MORE POT-POURRI 

has to be accepted, not cavilled at, by a girl who under- 
stands life when she marries a man who is not very 
young, and who has knocked about the world. She 
would scarcely wish him to tell her details of passing 
love affairs ; but I would go so far, without any insult 
to him, as to recommend that a girl who knows what she 
is doing should solemnly, and in all tenderness and love, 
just before marriage, put the question to the man she 
is engaged to whether his particular past entails any 
serious ties upon him. By this I mean that she should 
know whether he has children whom he ought to edu- 
cate and look after, in order that she may not only 
face the fact, but also help him to do his duty by them. 
No secret should come between them, especially not one 
which, if ignored, might perhaps bring forth future 
trouble. If he has no such ties, so much the better for 
everybody. If he has, she who is about to marry him 
should share the troubles and privations that they entail. 
So many problems in this life are solved by courage. 
Facing such a position does not make it, whereas ignor- 
ing it may weave difficulties and misery. 

Optimism I have always believed to be the right rule 
of conduct both for men and nations. Yet there is truth 
in what I have somewhere read that it must not be an 
optimism without intelligence. It should not be that 
kind of optimism which, to keep cheerful, must blot out 
menace by looking another way, and obliterate coming 
peril by turning the back. Neither in private nor in 
public life should it be the spurious optimism which is 
part dullness of perception, part moral weakness, part 
intellectual timidity, part something worse — I mean, 
refusal to recognise approaching danger because open 
recognition would have to be followed by the worry or 
expense of prevention. 

As I said before, it is so difficult to generalise — not 



AUGUST 443 

only because every individual case has a different aspect, 
but also because every ten years makes an entirely 
different platform for our conduct of life. This seems 
to me to be not sufficiently acknowledged. Once more I 
return to a bundle of letters, to find one written by a 
very old friend of our family, which talks of the decline 
of life, from a man's point of view, in a way that is 
individual and yet applicable to many : 

' I quite agree with you that it is very disagreeable to 
grow old, and I have always thought that if I had been 
Providence I would have made life begin with dotage 
and decrepitude, and go on freshening and improving to 
a primal death. But as I am a humble individual, and 
not Providence, I make up my mind to things as they 
are. Neither old women nor old men can hope to be 
loved amorously or sentimentally, whatever other love 
they may obtain. I confess that for long years the 
ruling feeling of my life was a love of women, and a 
desire to be loved by them, not exactly with a passionate 
love, but with a love having in it some touch of amorous 
sentiment. It was for this that I chiefly valued my 
youth, my intellect, my celebrity, and whatever else I 
possessed that might help me to it. And it was through 
loving women, "not wisely but too well," that I made 
myself unpopular both with men and women ; for I 
cared nothing about men, and they saw it and resented 
it, and yet women are in the hands of men, and he who 
would be popular with women should take care first to 
get men's good word. Even if I had taken count of 
this in time, perhaps, I should not have taken heed to it, 
for I was rather reckless and heedless in my youth, and 
more disposed to trust to fortune than to take means, 
and perhaps I had also a sort of latent consciousness 
that what I desired was not good for me, and thus was 
I, in the absence of better safeguards, 



444 MORE POT-POURRI 

' From social snares with ease 
Saved by that gracious gift, inaptitude to please. 

'Youth is dead and gone at eight -and -twenty, and 
one may mourn it for a year or two then ; but at thirty 
it is time to rise and eat bread, and after fifty one no 
more desires to be young than one desires to be the 
Archangel Michael or Henry VIII. One does not desire 
it, because one cannot conceive it. The past is so long 
past that it is past being a subject for regret ; and as 
to the future, one has to look forward to losing one's 
eyes and ears and brains, and some of the powers of 
one's stomach, but one has not the loss of youth to 
look forward to, and that is one source of sadness 
removed — and to me it used to be, thirty or forty years 
ago, a source of sadness ; for I was very fond of my 
youth, and cared more for it than for eyes, ears, brains, 
stomach, and all the rest. Now they have a fair share 
of my regard, and I shall be sorry for their decay. I 
think you make too much of my imagination as a 
resource. It is true that from time to time I join a 
party of phantoms, and find them pleasant to live with 
on the whole, though they sometimes give me a good 
deal of trouble, and at other times wear my nerves a 
little. But my main resource is in my business. Act- 
ing to a purpose with steadiness and regularity is the 
best support to the spirits and the surest protection 
against sad thoughts. Realities can contend with 
realities better than phantoms can . . . For the 
rest, Sydney Smith's precept is "Take short views of 
life." Henry Taylor expressed the same thing: 

1 Foresight is a melancholy gift 
Which bares the bald and speeds the all-too-swift. 

' To invest one's personal interests in the day that is 
passing, and to project one's future interests into the 



AUGUST 445 

children that are growing up, is the true policy of self- 
love in the decline of life, and as commendable a policy 
as it is in the nature of self-love to adopt.' 

I have recommended no books for girls. The ques- 
tion is much too big a one. But I cannot refrain from 
saying that within the compass of one small book I 
know nothing that comes up in wisdom and sagacity to 
Emerson's essays called 'The Conduct of Life,' and 
'Society and Solitude.' He says: 'Youth has an 
access of sensibility before which every object glitters 
and attracts. We leave one pursuit for another, and 
the young man's year is a heap of beginnings. At 
the end of a twelvemonth he has nothing to show for 
it, not one completed work. But the time is not lost.' 
If this is true of young men, it is doubly true of young 
women. Every experience is a growth, and every 
growth tends towards completion of life rightly under- 
stood. There should never be hopelessness and despair, 
whatever happens. The future is always ours, to conquer 
and make noble. No one can really crush us. Trodden 
under foot, if we choose we may rise again better, even 
nobler, than all the fortunate ones around us. It all 
depends on ourselves. That is why I admire Mr. George 
Moore's 'Esther Waters' almost above all modern novels, 
although Messrs. Smith & Son, whose stalls are covered 
with translations of French novels, refused to sell it. 

In spite of age and experience, I feel that on all these 
difficult subjects I have said very little that can be of 
use to anybody. There is no receipt by which we can 
regulate our lives. 'As our day is, so shall our strength 
be ' is a fact to those who train their natures to meet 
with courage the difficulties as they arise. 

One of our old divines states that 'Our infancy is 
full of folly ; youth, of disorder and toil ; age, of 
infirmity. Each time hath his burden, and that which 



446 MORE POT-POURRI 

may justly work our weariness ; yet infancy longeth 
after youth ; and youth after more age ; and he that is 
very old, as he is a child for simplicity, so he would be 
for years. I account old age the best of the three, 
partly for that it has passed through the folly and dis- 
order of the others ; partly, for that the inconveniences 
of this are but bodily, with a bettered estate of the 
mind,.; and partly, for that it is nearest to dissolution.' 
I wish I could agree with Bishop Hall, but I do not. I 
very often feel that quite the worst part of old age is 
that it brings us near to dissolution. My sympathies all 
remain with the young, and I only feel at times inclined 
to cry out, with Thomas Moore : 

Give me back, give me back the wild freshness of Morning ; 
Her clouds and her tears are worth Evening's best light. 

I fear everyone will think this is not at all as it 
should be ; and I only feel it sometimes, and perhaps 
even that won't last. 

This is good-bye, dear reader. Collecting these notes 
has given me pleasure and also cost me trouble. I can- 
not do better than close them by quoting what were 
almost the last lines ever written by my kind friend and 
brother-in-law, Owen Meredith. I owe him as large a 
debt of gratitude as one human being can owe another. 
It was due to his friendly advice and his kind encourage- 
ment that my mind was saved from that sense of failure 
and disappointment so common — to women, at any rate 
— in middle life. He taught me how all ages have their 
advantages, and gave me courage to go on learning, even 
to the end. He always seemed able to see the line of 
the other shore with a brightness not granted to me : 

My songs flit away on the wing : 

They are fledged with a smile or a sigh : 

And away with the songs that I sing 
Flit my joys, and my sorrows, and I. 



AUGUST 447 

For time, as it is, cannot stay : 

Nor again, as it was, can it be : 
Disappearing and passing away 

Are the world, and the ages, and we. 

Gone, even before we can go, 

Is our past, with its passions forgot, 
The dry tears of its wept-away woe, 

And its laughters that gladden us not. 

The builder of heaven and of earth 

Is our own fickle fugitive breath : 
As it comes in the moment of bfrth, 

So it goes in the moment of death. 

Ajs the years were before we began, 

Shall the years be when we are no more : 

And between them the years of a man 

Are as waves the wind drives to the shore. 

Back into the Infinite tend 

The creations that out of it start : 
Unto every beginning an end, 

And whatever arrives shall depart. 

But I and my songs, for a while, 

As together away on the wing 
We are borne with a sigh or a smile, 

Have been given this message to sing — 

The Now is an atom of sand, 

And the Near is a perishing clod : 
But Afar is as Faery Land, 

And Beyond is the bosom of God. 



INDEX 



Abutilon vitifolium, 179. 

Abutilons, 269. 

Acacia dealbata, 209. 

Ads autumnalis, 140. 

Aconites, 171, 266. 

Adonis autumnalis, 140. 

— vernalis, 269. 

Agapanthus, 37. 

Albany, Countess of, 320. 

Allenii, 269. 

Almond, 215. 

Alonsoa Warsceiviczii, 140. 

Alpines, 276. 

Alstrcemeria psittacina, 178. 

Alstroemerias, 311. 

Alyssum, 258. 

Amiel, Professor, his house at 

Geneva and his portrait, 382, 

383. 
Ampelopsis veitchii, 370, 371. 
Amygdalus davidiana, 208, 215. 
Anchusa capensis, 169. 
— italica, 169. 
— sempervirens, 169. 
Andromedas, 270. 
Anemone fulgens grwcii, 269, 270. 
— Pulsatilla, 266. 
Anemone, Scarlet, tradition of, 

310. 
Angelo, Michael, villa said to 

have been designed by, 356. 
Annuals, list of, 140, 169, 170 ; 

sowing, 261. 
Apple trees, 159. 
Apples, nourishing properties 

of, 159, 160, 273. 
Apricots, puree of, 314. 
Araucaria, 96. 
Artichokes, Jerusalem, 133. 
Arums, 183. 
Arve, river, 384. 
Asclepias incarnata, 369. 



Asclepias tuberosa, 369. 
Ashburnham collection, the, 164. 
Asparagus, 59, 182, 263 ; wild, 

277 ; salad, 313. 
Aspidistras, 172. 
Aspidium, 209. 
Association for the Prevention 

of Tuberculosis, 82. 
Aster amellus, 93. 
— grandiflora, 92. 
Auriculas, 294, 295. 
Austin, Mr. Alfred, definition of 

love by, 421. 
Azalea indica alba, 210. 
Azaleas, 179, 180, 210, 258. 

Babies, management of, 235 sgq. 

Bagehot, Walter, on luxury, 
231. 

Bale, its associations with Eras- 
mus, 387, 388 ; pictures by 
Boecklin at, 388. 

Balloon-plants, 176. 

Banana, the, superstition about, 
310. 

Bashkirtseff, Marie, 327, 412. 

Baskets, Japanese, 268. 

Beans, haricot, to cook, 151. 

Beds, raised, 354. 

Beech trees, avenue of, 50, 51, 
130. 

Beef, boiled, 100. 

Begonias, 163, 183. [363. 

Berenson, on modern art, 362, 

Besler, Basil, 94. 

Eible, the Tissot, 165. 

Birds, feeding, in winter, 146 ; 
eating buds, 208 ; the harm 
and the good they do, 288. 

Blackbeetles, to destroy, 219. 

Blackie, Professor, on squan- 
dered lives, 376. 



cc 



(449) 



45° 



INDEX 



Blake, William, allusion to, 432. 

Bleeding, for fever, 227. 

Blight on carnations, etc., mix- 
ture for destroying, 392. 

Blinds, substitutes for, 406 ; 
drawing them down in cases 
of death, 407. 

Blunt, Mr. Wilfred, sonnets on 
love by, 424-426. 

Boeeklin, Arnold, picture by, 
73, 74 ; his pictures at Bale, 
389, 390 ; M. Edouard Rod's 
criticism of, 390. 

Books on cookery, 9, 40, 61, 65, 
219, 304, 313, 314. 

Books on gardening, botany, 
etc.: Mrs. Loudon's 'Ama- 
teur Gardener,' 4 ; Curtis' 
'Botanical Magazine,' 24, 26 ; 
Mrs. Brightwen's ' Glimpses 
into Plant Life,' 25 ; Robin- 
son's 'English Flower Gar- 
den,' 27, 166; Sutton's 'Cul- 
ture of Vegetables and Flow- 
ers,' 29 ; Wright's 'Profitable 
Fruit-growing,' 29; Loudon's 
'Ladies' Flower Garden,' 31, 
90; 'The Gentlewoman,' 45, 
61, 99; Milner's 'Country 
Pleasures,' 54-56 ; Maund's 
' Botanic Garden ' and the 
' Botanist, ' 86, 166, 275 ; John- 
son's 'Gardener's Dictionary,' 
91, 166 ; Besler's ' Hortus 
Eystettensis, ' 94 ; Wallace's 
'Notes on Lilies and their 
Culture,' 96 ; Loudon's 'Ar- 
boretum et Fruticetum,' 130 ; 
the 'Retired Gardener,' 130 ; 
Wright's ' Profitable Fruit- 
growing,' 131, 132; Syden- 
ham's ' How I came to grow 
Bulbs,' 49, 134; Vilmorin's 
'Vegetable Garden,' 150; 
Smee's 'My Garden,' 155; 
Brightwen's ' Guide to the 
Study of Botany,' 206 ; Ella- 
combe's 'Gloucestershire Gar- 
den,' 207; Lindley's 'Rosa- 
rum Monographia, ' 208 ; Miss 



Jekyll's 'Wood and Garden,' 
211-213; M. Corre von 's books 
on floriculture, 385, 386. 

Books on health and the causa- 
tion of disease, 222, 223, 225. 

Books on natural history, 53, 
306. 

Boots, brown, polishing, 218. 

Borage, Italian, 352. 

Bordeaux mixture for blight, 
393. 

Botticelli, illustrations of Dante 
by, 164 ; Pater on, 320 ; two 
pictures in the Pitti gallery 
by, 360, 361 ; his qualities as 
an artist, 361, 362. 

Bottles, corking, 63. 

Bouvardia, 133. [128. 

Boyhood, reminiscences of, 119- 

Boys, training of, 12 ; indepen- 
dence in, 14. 

Bran -water, 291. [42. 

Bread-sauce, receipts for, 41, 

Brightwen, Mrs., ' Glimpses into 
Plant Life' by, 25 ; ' Guide to 
the Study of Botany' by, 206. 

Brompton Hospital, 80. 

Browallia data, 170. [204. 

Browne, Sir Thomas (quoted), 

Browning love-letters, the, 437. 

Browning, Mrs., verses on the 
reciprocal needs between 
North and South Europe, 373, 
374 ; on love, 423. 

Bulbs, cultivation of, 48-50, 
134. 

Bullace, the, 133. 

Buonafede, Cardinal Lionardo, 
tomb of, 347. 

Burbidge, Mr., lecture by, 291. 

Burne -Jones, picture of Pan and 
Psyche by, 265, 280 ; his death, 
366; Mr. Ruskin's opinion of 
his work, 367. 

Butterflies, 34, 35, 170 ; book on, 
286. 

Byron, Lord, his travelling 
coach on the Continent, 71; 
Moore's ' Life' of, 71 ; verses 
by, 366 ; at Geneva, 382. 



INDEX 



451 



Cabbage, red, 98 ; green, 161, 
293 ; cooking, 312. 

Cactuses, 288-290. 

Calendula pluvialis, 275, 276. 

Calochorti, 176. 

Camellias, 28, 129, 258, 353. 

Campanula pyramidalis, 24, 312, 

Campanula tribe, 311. [402. 

Canard a la Rouennaise, 67. 

Cap9, the, plants from, charac- 
teristics of, 38. 

Carlisle, Lady, letters of, 113. 

Carnations, 269, 355, 392. 

Carpenteria Calif ornica, 179. 

Carpet on stairs, 407. 

Carpets, sweeping, 202. 

Caryopteris macrantlia, 26. 

Casseroles, 62. 

Cassia australis, 370. 

— corymbosa, 37. 

Castellane, Comtesse de, verses 
by, 85. 

Casts, plaster, 280. 

Catalpa syring&folia, 369. 

Catananche ccerulea, 170. 

Caterpillar, 'Pale Tussock,' 58. 

Cedar- wood as a deodoriser, 292. 

Celandine, 214. 

Celeriac, 59, 68. 

Cerasus, 215. 

Cerasus pseudo- cerasus, 290. 

Cereus, night-flowering, 289, 290. 

Chamberi, 378. 

Chamfort (quoted), 437. 

Character, formation of, 16, 17. 

Chai'les I. and Henrietta Maria, 
painting in the Pitti gallery 
of, 363. 

'Charmilles,'129. 

Chasse, receipt for, 217. 

Chelsea Physic Garden, 403, 404. 

Cherries and semolina, receipt 
for, 401. 

Cherry trees, 215. 

Chervil soup, 64. 

Chestnuts au jus, 67. 

Chestnuts, Sweet Spanish, 36. 

Chickens, cooking, 8, 42 63, 67, 
152, 216, 303, 398 ; grammar 
of the word, 9 ; liver of, 153. 



Chicory, 136, 137. 

Children: home-training, 12-20, 

250 sqq.; present-giving, 142, 
143; anecdotes, 143, 250, 251, 
254, 255 ; management, 235 
sqq.; education, 246 sqq., 250, 

251 sqq. 
Chionodoxas, 269. 
Chives, 182. 

Choisya tcrnata, 173, 174. 
Christmas, decorations at, 14:;. 
Chrysanthemums, 92, 93, 128, 

129, 133, 139, 290. 
Churches, decorating, 143. 
Chymonanthus fragrans, 29. 
Cimicifuga raeemosa, 140. 
Cineraria cruenta, 284. 
Cineraria, double, 275. 
Clematis cirrhosa, 155. 
Cloud effects, Mr. Ruskin on, 

404, 405. 
Coblentz, 84. 
Cod, how to dress, 101. 
Coleridge, poems of, 112. 
Collops, minced, 100, 101. 
Commelina cozlestis, 169, 170, 176. 
Conservatory, difference between 

a greenhouse and a, 90, 91, 92, 

210, 284. 
Constancy, the virtue of, over- 
praised, 432. 
Conversation, the gift of, 413. 
Convolvulus mauritanicus, 370. 
Cookery, books on, 9, 40, 61, 65, 

219, 304, 313, 314. 
Cooking in Germany, 62. 
Corelli, Miss Marie, her views 

on marriage, 417, 420. 
Corn-flowers, 169. 
Cornhill Magazine, 8. 
Coronilla, 97, 211. 
Cotoneaster microphylla, 57. 
Cots, children's, 237. 
Cottage -window gardening, 288, 

289. 
Cotyledons, 48. 
Cowper (quoted), 89. 
Cremation, 274, 275. 
Crimson Rambler, 352. 
Crinodendron hookeri, 179. 



452 



INDEX 



Crinum Moorei, 92, 267-8. 
Crinums, 91, 92, 267. 
Criticisms on the author's first 

book, 2-20. 
Crockery, pouring boiling water 

into, 203. 
Crocus speciosus, 58. 

— tommasinianus, 263. 
Crocuses, 266, 270. 
Cronberg, a visit to, 72, 73, 

390, 391. 

Croutes of ham and beans, 399. 

Crow, Mrs., the ghost-seer anec- 
dote of, 234. 

Crown Imperials, 309 ; legend 
about, 309. 

Cucumbers, preserving, 43. 

Currants, 131, 401. 

Curry, 43, 44. 

Curtains as substitutes for 
blinds, 406, 407. 

Curtis' 'Botanical Magazine,' 
24, 26. 

Cyclamens, 168, 209. 

Cyperus laxus, 173. 

Cypresses, 337, 339, 340, 372. 

Cypripediums, 97. 

Dabceda polifolia, 180. 
Daffodils, 171, 209. [48. 

Dahlias, winter-preservation of, 
Daisies, Michaelmas, 88, 92, 93, 

290; Paris,. 97. 
Damsons, pickled, 44, 45. 
Damson trees, 133. 
Dandelion, 214, 215. 
Dante, Botticelli's illustrations 

of, 164. 
Daphne blagayana, 164, 260, 269. 

— cneorum, 260. 

— indica, 154, 155. 
Datura, 91. 

Daughters. See Girls, Love, 

Marriage, &c. 
Day Lily, 387. 
Dead, the, regrets of the living 

for, 117, 118. 
Deamer, Mrs., poem by, 247, 248. 
December, shortest days of, 

137-139. 



Delphiniums, 95. 
Dcndrobium mobile, 210. 
Deodorisers for the house, 292, 

293. 
Desfontainea spinosa, 156. 
Deutsche Perle, 258. 
Dictamnus fraxinella, 140. 
Dielytra spectabilis, 28. 
Diet, confessions about, 220 sqq. 
Dimorphotheca eclonis, 275. 
Dinner-tables, 281, 282. 
Doctors, their instructions to 

nurses, 10 ; their treatment of 

rheumatic and other eases, 

222 sqq. 
Dogwood, 159. 
Doyle, 'Dickie,' 76. 
Dracocephalum argumense, 177. 
Dublin, Botanical Garden and 

' Kew' of, 163. 
Ducks, cooking, 67. 

Eastlake, Lady, 7. 

Echeveria glauca, 48. 

— metallica crispa, 47. 

Echeverias, 47 ; derivation of 
the word, 87. 

Education of girls, 17-20. 

Education of young children, 
246 sqq. 

Eels, dressing, 66. 

Eggs, preserving, 303, 304. 

Elgin, Lord, 126. 

Eliot, George, 314, 320, 351, 365 ; 
at Geneva, 382 ; on reticence, 
408, 409, 414 ; on the sadness 
of love, 421, 422 ; on intel- 
lectual effort in women, 434, 
435. 

Emerson, quotation from the 
Essays of, 445. 

Endive, cooking, 45, 66 ; grow- 
ing, 136. 

Engadine, the, episode at a ball 
in, 216. 

Epiphyllum truncation, 174. 

Erasmus, at Bale, 388; Froude's 
lectures on, 388 ; Holbein's 
portrait of, 388. 

Escallonia pterocladon, 162, 163. 



INDEX 



453 



Eucalyptus citriodora, 174. 
— gunnii, 392. 
Eucryphia pinna tifolia, 215. 
Eugenia utjni, 181. 
Eulalia Japonica, 60. 
Eupatorium purpureum, 140. 
Euphorbia splendens, 87. 
Excitements of society, 435. 

Falkenstein, establishment for 
the open -air treatment of 
phthisis at, 80, 81. 

Ferns, 57, 91, 141, 209, 310. 

Ficus repens, 174. 

Field, Mr. Michael (quoted), 430. 

Figs, 35, 36, 129. 

Fire-bricks, blackleading, 203. 

Fireflies in Italy, 338. 

Fire-screen, a Rossetti, 279, 280. 

Fish, application of boracic acid 
to, 65; how-to dress, 101; 
receipts for cooking, 217, 270, 
271. 

Fish, fresh -water, to dress, 64, 
65. 

Flammarion, Camille, 135. 

Flat -hunting in London, 404. 

Flies, receipt for the destruc- 
tion of, 202. 

Florence: Boboli Gardens, 12-9; 
literature, 314, 317, 320, 326, 
345; the author's experiences, 
335 sqq.; Galileo's tower, 335 ; 
a view from a window, 337 ; 
cypresses, 337, 339 ; fireflies, 
338 ; lemon trees, 339 ; the 
'Caseine,' 340? lime trees, 
341 ; the Duomo, 341, 368 ; 
destruction of old buildings, 

343 ; convent of San Marco, 

344 ; Mr. Howells' ' Tuscan 
Cities,' 345; Certosa monas- 
tery, 347 ; tomb of Cardinal 
Buonafede, 347 ; festival of 
Corpus Christi, 348-350 ; 
church of Santa Margharita, 
348 ; costumes and habits of 
the people, 350 ; Monte Sen- 
naria, 351 ; villa gardens, 352, 
353 ; villa said to have been 



designed by Michael Angelo, 
35G; villa Gamberaia, 356 ; the 
aziola or night-owl, 357; Ary 
Scheffer's picture of ' Paolo 
andFrancesca,' 358; Burmese 
goldfish, 359 ; pictures by 
Botticelli in the Pitti Gallery, 
360, 361 ; fondness for the 
early Florentine masters, 362 ; 
cabinet of Cardinal Leopoldo 
dei Medici, 364; 'Roniola,' 
365, 366; the great 'Festa,' 
367 ; fireworks, 309 ; Botanical 
Garden, 369, 370 ; Riccardi 
Palace, 371 ; old Medicean 
room, 372; San Miniato, 372; 
the longing of the South for 
the influence of the North, 
373, 374. 

Flower-glasses, 172, 173. 

Flower-tables, 96. 

Food in relation to health, 220 
sqq. 

Foot-race in Berlin, 234. 

Forcemeat, 98. 

Forcing-boxes, 168. 

Forenia asiatica, 173. 

Forsythia intermedia, 270. 

— suspensa, 284. 

France, dressing fresh-water 
fish in, 64, 65. 

Frankfort, visits to, 70-75, 391; 
Jewish cemetery at, 75; sec- 
ond-hand bookseller of, 93 ; 
the ' Palmengarten' at, 391. 

Franking letters, 120. 

Freesias, 210. 

Friendship between men and 
women, 427, 430. 

Frits Quihou, 180. [268. 

Frost, protection against, 141, 

Froude, J. A., his 'Life and 
Letters of Erasmus,' 388. 

bruits, bottled, 305. 

Fruit trees, treatment of, 29, 
131, 132; for hedgerows, 51. 

Fungi, 213. 

Funkia Sieboldi, 28. 

Furniture, buying, 203; polish- 
ing, 218, 



454 



INDEX 



Galega officinalis, 311. 

Galileo, 335; his blindness, and 
the place of his exile at Flor- 
ence, 335, 336. 

Galton, Sir P., 11. 

Game, way to improve frozen, 
184. 

Gandavensis gladioli, 32. 

Garden, kitchen, 29; in Suffolk, 
37. 

Gardening, as a healthy occupa- 
tion, 168 ; its pleasures for the 
aged, 285. 

Garrya elliptica, 155. 

Gas, acetylene, for house-light- 
ing, 145. 

Gateau Savarin, 70. 

Gazanias, 97. 

Geneva, 379 ; its associations 
with Byron, Shelley, George 
Eliot, and Professor Amiel, 
382 ; the Ariana Museum at, 
384; garden of M. Correvon 
near, 385; gardens round, 386. 

Genista prcecox, 208. 

Genistas, 171, 181. 

'Gentlewoman, The' (1864), 45, 
61, 63, 99. 

Geraniums, sweet-scented, 36, 
169, 174; winter preservation 
of, 48; 'New Life, '133; hard- 
ening, 269. 

Gerarde (quoted), 32. 

Germany, cooking in, 62, 100 ; 
a visit to, 70-84 ; heating 
rooms in, 72 ; over- heated 
railway carriages in, 84. 

Girls : training, 12 ; independ- 
ence, 14; education, 17-20 ; 
reading, 19, 20 ; relations witli 
mothers, 408, 411, 412 sqq.; 
dangers of reticence, 408, 409 ; 
their need of sympathy, 410 
sqq.; training in conversation, 
413, 414 ; the cultivation of 
happiness, 415; kissing, 418; 
first thoughts of marriage, 420 ; 
their varied views of love, 421 ; 
platonie affection with men, 
427 ; not understood after 



marriage, 428 ; the question 
of love in accepting a husband, 
431 ; 'skill in waiting,' 432 ; 
constancy, 432 ; intellectual 
effort, 433, 434; the desire for 
admiration and notoriety, 438 ; 
'marrying for money,' 439 ; 
the growth of experience, and 
the hopefulness of the future, 
445; the difficulty of laying 
down rules for conduct, 445. 

Gladstone, Mr., on travelling, 
328 ; his Italian translation of 
Cowper's hymn, ' Hark, my 
soul,' 333. 

Gloire tie Lorraine, 163, 209. 

Gloria Mundi, 180. 

Goethe (quoted), 13, 433, 434 ; 
his house at Frankfort, 76, 77 ; 
sayings of, 76 ; as an artist, 
77 ; Tischbein's picture of, 78 ; 
on letters, 106. 

Goldfish, Burmese, 359. 

'Good King Henry,' 298. 

Gooseberries, 131. 

Gorse, for rooms, 306. 

Governesses, 17. 

Grasses, Japanese, 60. 

Green, John Richard, work on 
Italy by, 324. 

Greenhouse, plants for, 87-93, 
166-175, 267 ; arrangement 
of, 90, 91, 133; glass of, 135; 
heating, 168. 

Greville, Charles, his memoir of 
the author's father, 114-116. 

Grouse, sauce for, 44 ; cooking, 
64. 

Growing old, 444-446. 

Grumbling of children, 12, 13. 

'Guardian, 'the, 29. 

GypsopHla, 140, 169. 

Hall, Bishop, 446. 

Hallam, Arthur, Mr. Gladstone's 

account of, 328, 329. 
Hamamelis japonica, 215. 
Hampton Court, covered walk 

at, 129. 
Hanbury, Commendatore, 264. 



INDEX 



455 



Happiness, the cultivation of, 

415. 
Hare, Augustus J. C, his books 

on Italy, 314, 329, 372. 
Health, 10; hints on, 220 sqq. 
Hearths, marble preferable to 

tiled, 406. 
Heaths, 129, 180. 
Heine, 75. 
Heliotrope, 91, 181. 
Hellebores, 164. 
Hemeroeallis fulva, 386. 
Henry Jacobi Pelargonium, 91. 
Hepatieas, 49, 50. 
Herb -seasoning, 45. 
Herbert, William (quoted), 87. 
Heredity, 11. 
Hernandez, physician to Philip 

II., 32. 
Hesperis tristis, 294. 
Hess, Dr. Karl, 80. 
Holbein, portrait of Erasmus 

by, 388. 
Holbcellia latifolia, 267. 
Holland, Mrs., quotation from 

letters by, 430. 
Holly, for decorating, 145; 

Southey's lines on, 306. 
Hollyhocks, mixture for destroy- 
ing blight on, 392. 
Home, absence from, 21; con- 
versation in the, 414. 
Home-life, 12, 13, 409 sqq. 
Honey, 272. 
Honeysuckle, 130. 
Hops, 298. 
Hornbeam, the, 129; weeping, 

130. 
'Hortus Eystettensis, ' title of 

old book on flowers, 94. 
'Hotch-potch,' 4. 
House, the, good management 

in, 200-203. 
Howells, W. D., on Florence, 

345. 
Hugo, Victor (quoted), 34. 
Humboldt, Baron, on the amount 

of sleep necessary, 196. 
Humea elegans, 393. 
Hyacinths, 49, 134, 163, 210, 257. 



Hydrangeas, 37, 38, 370. 
Hypocrisy, necessity of some 
kinds of, 409. 

I bens sempervirens, 170. 

Ice-plant, 89, 90. 

Imantophyllums, 97, 211, 216. 

Independence in boys and girls, 
12. 

India-rubber plants, 172. 

Individuality in art, 389, 390. 

Insects, in gardens, 33-35 ; dread 
of, 52. 

Ireland in January, 155; soil 
and trees of, 156-159 ; troubles 
of, 157; cooperative move- 
ment in, 162. 

Iris feetidissima, 60, 166, 175. 

— kcempferi, 176, 260. 

— pseudacarus, 370. 

— reticulata, 209. 

— stylosa, 211. 

— Susiana, 204. 

Irises, 60,163, 209,260; bloom- 
ing time of, 260. 

Italy, art in, 314 sqq. ; travelling 
in, 328, 329; survival of pa- 
ganism in, 349. See, also, 
Florence. 

Ivy, for rockerios, 57, 139, 140; 
growing on trees, 157 ; Japan- 
ese, 371. 

Ixias, 177. 

James, Mr. Henry, on illusions, 

432. 
Jameson, Mrs., 94 ; works on 

Italian art by, 317 sqq. 
Jams, 304, 305. . 
Jasmine, yellow, 91. 
Jasminum nudiflorum, 139, 155, 

163. 
Jekyll, Miss, book on gardening 

by, 211. 
Jelly, blackberry, 46 ; Norwegian 

fruit, 400, 401. 
Jesse, Edward, book on Natural 

History by, 53. 
Jeune, Lady, her views on mar- 
riage, 417, 418. 



456 



INDEX 



Jews, hatred on the Continent 
of, 75 ; cemetery at Frankfort 
for, 75; meat eaten by, 81. 

Johnson, Dr., quarrelling with 
his bride on the way to 
church, 428. 

Jowett, Dr., on friendship be- 
tween men and women, 430, 
431 ; on success in life, 432, 
433; on useless learning, 434, 
435. 

Jugs, tin, rusting of, 203. 

Kale, ' thousand-headed, ' 184. 
Kaulfussia amelloides, 140. 
Kerria Japonica, 134. 
Khayyam, Omar, 7. 
Kindergarten system, 248. 
Kingfisher, the, 22. 
Kissing, 418. 

Kitchen garden, 29; seeds for, 
165-167. 

Label, rockery, 270. 

Lachenalias, 210. 

Lake villages, curiosities from, 
378. 

Lamb, Lady Caroline, 71. 

Lamp-wicks, their smoking pre- 
vented, 218, 219. 

Larders, coverings for, 201. 

Larkspurs, 355. 

Laurestinus, 169. 

Lavender, 59. . 

Lawler, Mr. William, 162. 

Learning, useless, 434, 435. 

Lecky, Mr. (quoted), 429. 

Leeks, 182, 183. 

Lemon trees, leaves of, 292; 
scent in Italy from, 339. 

Lemons, usefulness of, 272, 273. 

Lentils, 151, 399, 400. 

Letter-writing, good, 106. 

Letters of the author's parents, 
107-113 ; of Mary Wollstone- 
craft, 106; franking, 120. 

Lettuces, 271, 272. 

Lewes, G. H., on Goethe as an 
artist, 76, 77. 

Libonia floribunda, 257. 



Lighting country houses, 145. 
Ligustrum sinense, 387. 
Liladna grandiflora, 176. 
Lilacs, 9*7, 183, 215, 257. 
Lilies, 96, 178, 216, 370; water, 

402. 
Lilium candidum, 370. 

— giganteum, 175. 

— speciosum, 216. 

— testaceum, 178. 

Lily, Belladonna, 24 ; Japanese, 

25; Chinese, 134; Day, 387. 
Lime trees of Florence, 341. 
Linaria aureo-purpurea, 170. 

— bipartita, 170. 

— repens alba, 176. 

— reticulata, 170. 

Linnaeus, 161 ; flower of, 386. 

Literature, educational, 17, 19. 

Liver of chickens, 153. 

London: shops at Christmas- 
time, 141 ; destruction of old 
buildings, 343 ; flat-hunting 
in, 404. 

Loneliness, 101, 148. 

Lonicera fragrantissima. 1 63 . 

Loudon, Mrs., the Amateur 
Gardener' by, 4; her 'Ladies' 
Flower Garden,' 31, 90; her 
'Arboretum et Fruticetum,' 
130. [94. 

Louis XIII., copyright given by, 

Love, Professor Max Miiller on, 
104, 105 ; girls' views of, 420 ; 
poets' thoughts on, 421-423, 
425, 426; Platonic, 427; mi~- 
takes of, 428, 429; its de- 
velopment into perfect friend- 
ship, 429, 430 ; its growth 
after marriage, 430. 

Love-in-the-mist, 169. 

Love-letters of Edward Villiers, 
107-113 ; of the Brownings, 
437. 

Lungwort, 285. 

Luther, house where he stayed, 
at Frankfort, 77. 

Luxury, Bagehot on, 235. 

Lygopetalum mackayi, 133. 

Lyndoch, Lord, portrait of, 137. 



INDEX 



457 



Machiavelli, Mr. J. Morley'a 
lecture on, 325, 326. 

Magnolia grandiflora, 36. 

Maidenhair, 91. 

Main, river, 71. [428. 

Malet, Lucas, on love, 423, 424, 

Mallock, Mr., on love, 424. 

Malmesbury, Lady, her views 
on marriage, 417, 418. 

Mandorla, almond-shaped glory, 
93. 

Mangold-wurzel, 298. 

Manners, 12, 13. 

Manuring, 161, 162. 

Maples, Japanese, 95, 391 ; 
variegated, 370, 391. 

Marigold, alleged origin of the 
name of, 310. 

Marketing, 61. 

Marlowe (quoted\ 54. 

Marriage: of the old with the 
young, 85 ; four articles on 
the subject by Miss Marie 
Corelli, Lady Jeune, Mrs. 
Steel, and Lady Malmesbury, 
417 sgq., 439, 440 ; misunder- 
standings between husband 
and wife, 426, 428, 429 ; de- 
velopment of a noble friend- 
ship after marriage, 429, 430 ; 
the question of love in accept- 
ing a husband, 431 ; the 
chances of marriage for a 
woman after thirty, 437 ; 
' Punch's ' advice, 438 ; mar- 
riage out of gratitude, 438 ; 
French customs, 438 ; love 
after marriage, 438; 'marry- 
ing for money,' 439; taking 
the initiative, 440 ; confiden- 
tial disclosures of past events, 
441. 

Marvels of Peru, 48. 

Mathiola bicomis, 294. 

Maund, B., author of the 
' Botanic Garden ' and the 
'.Botanist,' 86, 166, 275. 

Meadow-sweet, 391, 392. 

Medici, Leopoldo dei, cabinet 
of, 364. 



Meredith, Mr. George (quoted), 
413, 414. 

Meredith, Owen (quoted), 40, 
128, 426, 446, 447. 

Mesembrianthemums, 90. 

Michaelmas Daisies, 88, 92. 

Michauxia campanuloides, 24, 

— tchinatcliewii, 24. [176. 

Milk, skimmed, excellence of, 
161 ; sterilised, 241 ; boiling, 
242 sgq. 

Miller, Philip, the 'prince of 
gardeners,' 404. 

Milner, G., book on 'Country 
Pleasures ' by, 54-56. 

Milton, works of, 110; his visit 
to Galileo, 436 ; his allusions 
to Galileo in 'Paradise Lost,' 
436; poem by Mr. Stephen 
Phillips to, 436. 

Mimosa, 209. 

Mincemeat, 99. 

Mistletoe, 139. 

Mistresses and servants, rela- 
tions between, 187-199. 

Mixtures for destroying blight, 
392, 393. 

'Modern Marriage Market, The,' 
416, 417. 

Montbretias, 60, 175. 

Moonlight, walking by, 146. 

Moore, Thomas, lines on Love 
by, 421, 446. 

Moraeas, 267. 

Morel, the, 213. 

Morelli, Giovanni, ' Italian 
Painters' by, 79. 

Morely, Mr. John, lecture on 
Machiavelli, 325, 326. 

Moro, Ludovico il, 36. 

Mothers, training and self- 
cultivation of, 246 sgg.; their 
relations with daughters, 408 
sgg., 435. 

Mountain Ash, 130. 

Mulberries, 36. 

Miiller, Professor Max (quoted), 
104, 105, 197, 304. 

Mushrooms, growing, 135, 136, 
182; cooking, 271. 



458 



INDEX 



Mustard and cress, 268. 
Mather, Richard, ' History of 

Modern Painting' by, 74. 
Mutton cutlets a la Russe, 185. 

Napoleon III. at the Villa 

Gamberaia, 356. 
Narcissus, 48, 134. 
Natural history, its attractions 

for young people, 53 ; books 

on, 204, 286, 306. 
Nelson, Lord, 147. 
Nemesia strumosa, 23, 59, 169, 

307. 
Nephrodium membranifolium, 209. 
Nesbit, E., child's song by, 256. 
'New Education,' the, 246 sqq. 
Newman, Cardinal, on the mys- 
tical meaning of a garden, 355. 
Nicotiana affinis, 294, 307. 
Night- flowering plants, 293. 
Night-owl, or aziola, 357. 
Nurses, sick, 10, 238; children's, 

238. 
Nursing children, hints on, 235 

sqq. 

O'Connor, Mr. T. P., 116, 117. 
Odontoglossum alexandrce, 210. 

— picturatum, 97. 

— Bossii major, 259. 
(Enotkera odorata, 294. 
Oil, olive, 400. 

Old, growing, 443-446. 
Old age, 149, 443, 444. 
Oleanders, 286, 356, 373. 
Oliphant, Mrs.,' The makers of 

Florence ' by, 322. 
Olla podrida, 4. 
Omphalodes lucilice, 170. 
Onions, as a tonic, 273; sowing, 

300; cooking, 304. 
Optimism, 442. 
Orchids, 97, 133, 210, 259. 
Origanum dictamnus, 26. 

— hybridum, 26. 
Ornithogalum pyramidale, 311. 
Orobanchejpruinosa, 339. 
Ouida, her allusions to Galileo's 

tower, 336, 337; on fireflies, 



3«?8; her description of the 
church of Santa Margharita, 
Florence, 348, 349. 

Oxalis acetosella, 172. 

— Bowiei, 87. 

— floribunda, 59. 

Oxalis, white, 172. 

Oxford, Botanic Gardens at, 404. 

P&onia corallina, 174, 175. 

Paint, cleaning, 218; for stairs, 
407. 

Painters, Italian, works on, 79, 
316 sqq. 

Paintings, by Arnold Boecklin, 
74; in the Staedel Art Insti- 
tute, 78-80. 

Pall Mall Gazette, article on 
child -training in, 252-255. 

Pancretium fragrans, 30. 

Pancretiums, 30. 

Parents, duties of, 12-20. 

Paris, schools in, 120, 121, 125. 

Parochetus communis, 169. 

Parsnips, cooking, 184. 

Partridges, cooking, 64. 

Passion Flower, 91 ; its symbol- 
ical meaning, 310, 311. 

Pater, Walter, 319, 320, 323, 349, 
350. 

Patmore, Coventry, lines on the 
difficulty of understanding 
women by, 426. 

Peach trees, 136. 

Peas, Sweet, 36,169, 260; green, 
170, 212 ; everlasting, 290 ; 
'mange-tout,' 307. 

Pelargonium, 133 ; Prince of 
Orange, 168, 174, 307. 

Pergolas, 129. 

Periwinkle, 57. 

Pernettyas, 57. 

Phacelia campanularia, 169, 170. 

Pheasant, stuffed with wood- 
cocks, 98, 99. 

Phillips, Mr. Claude, quotation 
from his article on the Millais 
exhibition, 390. 

Phillips, Mr. Stephen, poem to 
Milton blind by, 336, 370. 



INDEX 



459 



Phloxes, 24, 290. 

Phormvum tenax, 140. 

Phthisis, open-air treatment of, 
80, 81. 

Phylloxera, mixture for destroy- 
ing, 392, 393. 

'Pickwick,' 120. 

Piedmontese, the, chief food of, 
265, 266. 

Pigeons, cooking, 64. 

Pinks, 'Mrs. Simpkin,' 88. 

Piuus austriaca, 50. 

Pittosporum tohira, 284. 

Plain-speaking, 12, 13. 

Plants, wild, 166. 

Platyceriums, 91. 

Platycodons, 176. 

Plumbago capensis, 27, 36, 91. 

— rosea, 60. 

Poems quoted or alluded to : 
' Bethia Hai'dacre's' 'I pray 
to f ail, ' 7 ; Watson's ' Nay, bid 
me not my cares to leave,' 21 ; 
Burns' ' To a Louse,' 22; Vic- 
tor Hugo's 'La pauvre fleur,' 
&c, 34 ; Owen Meredith's 
'Lucile,' 40; 'How much 
is lost,' &c, 51 ; Marlowe's 
'Passionate Shepherd,' 54; 
' Slight, to be crush 'd with a 
tap,' &c, 56; Sydney Smith's 
' Salad,' 68, 69 ; lines by Lady 
Caroline Lamb on Byron, 71 ; 
lines by 'Bethia Hardacre,' 
72; 'Vous et Moi,' by Com- 
tesse de Castellane, 85; Cow- 
per on a greenhouse, 89 ; 'It 
is not sad to turn the face 
towards home,' 101 ; from 
'Ionica,' 102, 103; sonnet by 
Mr. Aubrey de Vere, 103; 'If 
I had known,' by Christian 
Eeed, 118 ; Owen Meredith's 
allusion to the rose of Octo- 
ber, 128; 'The old friends,' 
147, 148 ; ' Laugh, and the 
world laughs with you,' 149, 
150 ; song of ' Bethia Hard- 
acre's,' 150 ; translation from 
the German, 155, 156 ; ' Often 



1 wish that I might be,' &c, 
158 ; Mr. W. Lawler's lines 
on Ireland, 162 ; ' Snowdrop 
Time,' 171; ' Sympathy,' 200; 
on ' Solitude,' 209; sonnet by 
Thomson, 213 ; Wordsworth on 
the Celandine, 214 ; epitaph, 
223 ; ' The Angel that presided 
o'er my birth,' 247 ; Mrs. 
Deamer's poem on a child's 
experience, 247, 248 ; child's 
song by E. Nesbit, 254 ; 'Bethia 
Hardacre's ' 'Flower Chain,' 
263 ; lines on flowers closing 
at night, 276 ; Mr. Stephen 
Phillips' lines on a rain- 
shower, 283 ; S. Whiting's 
'Invitation,' 287 ; Southey's 
allusion to the holly tree, 406 ; 
Mr. Gladstone's Italian trans- 
lation of Cowper's 'Hark, my 
soul, '333; Mr. Stephen Phil- 
lips' poem to Milton blind, 
336 ; De Musset's ' J'ai perdu 
ma force et ma vie,' 341; 
Watson's allusion to church 
spires, 343; Shelley's 'Aziola,' 
357; sonnet by ' M. B.' on 
Paolo and Francesca, 358 ; 
verses by Byron applicable to 
the death of Burne- Jones, 366 ; 
Mrs. Browning's verses on 
the reciprocal needs between 
North and South Europe, 373, 
374; lines by M.Correvon, 386; 
Florian's poem on 'Euth, ' 416 ; 
lines from a play by Webster, 
417; lines by Moore on love, 
421 ; definition of love by Mr. 
Austin, 421 ; lines on the 
sadness of love, by a French- 
woman, 422 ; verses by George 
Eliot, 422 ; sonnet by Mrs. 
Browning, 423 ; Tennyson's 
lines on the test of love, 423 ; 
sonnets by Mr. Wilfred Blunt, 
425, 426 ; lines by Coventry 
Patmore, 426 ; verses by Owen 
Meredith, 426 ; ' Flagellum 
Stultorum,' quoted, 427, 428 j 



460 



INDEX 



Mr. Michael Field's lines on 
love, 430 ; lines on disap- 
pointed hopes, 436 ; ' The Way 
of Man,' 441; quotation from 
Thomas Moore, 446 ; some of 
the last verses written by Owen 
Meredith, 446, 447. 

Poinsettia pulcherrima, 134. 

Polenta, 265, 266. 

Polish, for furniture, 218 ; for 
brown boots, 218. 

Pollenation, 25. [284. 

Polygonatum multiflorum, 211, 

Polygonum Leichtlini, 27. 

— molle, 27. 

— sachalinense, 27. 
Polygonums, 27. 

Poplar, balsam-bearing, 279. 
Poppies, 169, 260, 310; packing, 
Poppy, Oriental, 95. [311. 

Potatoes, warming up, 100, 133 ; 

nourishing properties of, 161 ; 

cooking, 184, 313 ; various 

kinds of, 299. 
1 Pot-pourri, 1 meaning of, 3, 4. 
Poulet a l'Indienne, 399. 

— a la Marengo, 67. 

— a la Valencienne, 216. 
Poultry, diseases of, 300; man- 
agement of, 301. [142. 

Present-giving at anniversaries, 
Primrose, Cape, 297. 
Primula farinosa, 284. 
Privet, Golden, -95 ; Ligustrum 

sinense, 387. 
Processions, 350, 351. 
Pruning, 29, 135. [284. 

Prunus Pissardii, 58, 172, 208, 
Psalm LXVIII., illustration of a 

passage in, 31. 
Pudding, fried (German), 69 ; 

chocolate, 400. 
Pulmonaria, 258. 
Pumpkins, receipt for cooking, 

43; French, 150; soup of, 150. 
Puree, of vegetables, 43 ; of 

carrots, 67. 
Purslane, cooking, 45, 46, 299. 
Pyrola, 270. 
Pyrus Japonica, 208. 



Quick, R. H., 'Essays on Edu- 
cational Reformers,' by, 246. 

Railway-travelling, 328, 375 ; 

companions in, 377, 378. 
Rain-shower, a poem by Mr. S. 

Phillips on, 283. 
Rambler, Crimson, 88. 
Raphael, his portrait of himself, 

80. 
Rea, Miss Hope, 93. 
Reading for girls, the question 

of, 19, 20. 
Receipts, 39-46, 63-70, 97-101, 

150-153, 184-186, 216-219, 

270-273, 312-314, 398-401. 
Rembrandt, head of, painted by 

himself, 363. 
Reminiscences of boyhood, 119- 

128. 
Reticence in girls, dangers of, 

408-410. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, ' Dis- 
courses ' by, 314-316. 
Rheumatism, cures for, 220 sqq. 
Rhine, the, past and present 

appearance of, 71; Turner's 

sketches of, 84. 
Rhododendron, 28. 
Rhododendron jasminifiorum, 173. 
Rhone, the, colour of, 384. 
Rhubarb, cooking, 271 ; leaves 

of, 299. 
Riccardi Palace, the, 371, 372. 
Risotto a la Milanaise, 312, 313. 
Riviera, the, gardens of, 265. 
Robinson, W., his 'English 

Flower Garden,' 27. 
Rochester, Dean of, 88. 
Rockeries, 26, 57. 
Rod, M. Edouard, his criticism 

of Boecklin, 389. 
Rome, violets in the English 

cemetery at, 263. 
Rosemary, 58, 292. 
Roses, mulching, 48 ; 'MaCapu- 

cine,' 88 ; Lamarque, 88 ; 

Mphetos, 91, 155 ; lists of, 

140, 141; climbing, 258. 
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 7, 279. 



INDEX 



461 



Roundell, Mrs., cookery book 
by, 9, 65, 219. 

Rousseau, and his house at 
Chamberi, 398. 

Royal Horticultural Society, 291 . 

Rue, 182. 

Bupelia juncea, 370. 

Rush, or Italian broom, 352. 

Ruskin, Mr., on the work of 
Burne-Jones, 367 ; on modern 
Italian sculpture, 373 ; his de- 
scription of landscape paint- 
ing, 389 ; on cloud effects, 
404, 405. 

Russell, Lord John, his defini- 
tion of a proverb, 76. 

Salad, grouse, 44; celeriac, 68; 
Sydney Smith's recipe for, 68, 
69; winter, 97, 151, 182, 268; 
Barbe-de- Capucin, 136 ; dan- 
delion, 214. 

Salpiglossis, 169. 

Salsifies, 59. 

Samphire, 29. 

Santolina, 182. 

Sauce, bread, 41, 42; for grouse, 
44. 

Savonarola at San Marco, 345. 

Saxifraga burseriana, 276. 

— oppositifolia, 276. 

Saxifraga sancta, 276. 

Scheffer, Ary, his picture of 
'Paolo and Francesca,' 358. 

Schizopetalum Walkeri, 293. 

School-life, influence of, 13, 16. 

Schools in Paris, 120, 124-126. 

Schopenhauer, 2. 

Scillas, 171, 210. [113. 

Scott, Lives of the Novelists by, 

Sea, the, description of, 55, 56. 

Sea-kale, 182. 

Sedan chair, 120. 

Sedum spectabile, 33. 

Seeds, for kitchen garden, 165- 
167; flower, 168, 295-298. 

Self-sacrifice, 14, 15. 

Selfishness of sorrow, 103. 

Servants, difficulty, of getting, 
187, 188 ; characters of, 188, 



189; training of, 193; Regis- 
try Offices for, 192 ; difficulties 
of their position, 191; their 
prejudices and customs, 195 ; 
children's, 197 ; sympathy 
with, 200 ; effect of Board 
Schools on, 198. 

Seville, description of a garden 
in, 353, 354. 

Shelley, his poem on the Aziola, 
357 ; his house at Geneva, 382 ; 
quoted, 432. 

Shops of London at Christmas 
time, 141. 

Shrubs, 162, 163, 169, 179, 208, 
215, 284. 

Slaughterhouses, public, 81. 

Sleep, excessive amount of, 196. 

Sloane, Sir Hans, and the Chel- 
sea Physic Garden, 403, 4.04. 

Smelling, the art of, 293. 

Smilax, 91. 

Smith, Sir J. E. (quoted), 86. 

Smith, Sydney, his poetical 
recipe for salad, 68, 69 ; on 
overeating, 226, 227; quoted, 
444. 

Snowdrops, 171 ; poem on, 171. 

Society, excitements of, 435. 

Solatium glaucum, 369, 370. 

— jasminoides, 28. 

Sorrel, soup of, 64; two kinds 
of, 300; pur6e of, 313. 

Sorrow, selfishness of, 103 ; self- 
consciousness of, 116, 117; its 
salutary effect upon character, 
436, 437. 

Souchet, water, receipt for, 217, 
218. 

Soup, consomme^ 8; chervil, 64; 
sorrel, 64; pumpkin, 150, 151; 
vegetable marrow, 151. 

Spaghetti, to cook, 312. 

Sparaxis pulcherrima, 176. 

Sparmatia africana, 172. 

'Spectator,' the, 7, 12, 30. 

Sphagnum, 60. 

Spiders and their webs, 52, 53. 

Spinach, 298, 299; cooking, 313. 

Spirma confusa, 215, 256. 



462 



INDEX 



Spires Thunbergii, 284, 285. 

— Ulmaria, 391, 392. 
Spring, flowers of, poem on, 

263, 264. 
Staedel Art Institute, 77-80. 
Stael, Madame de, 111. 
Stains, fruit, to remove, 218. 
Stairs, carpet for, 407 ; paint 

for, 407. 
Staphylea colchica, 257. 
Statice latifolia, 175. 
Stauntonia latifolia, 267. 
Staveley, E. F., book on spiders 

by, 53. 
Steel, Mrs., her views on mar- 
riage, 417, 420. 
Stevenson, R. L, a saying of his 

on the training of boys, 12. 
Slokesia cyanea, 93. 
Stoneerop, 33. 
Stoves, heating, for rooms, 72 ; 

for greenhouses, 168. 
Strawberries, Alpine, 393-396; 

American way of growing, 

397. 
Style, literary, 2. 
Stylosa alba, 163. 

— speciosa, 163. 

Success in life, Dr. Jowett on, 

432, 433. 
Suffolk, a garden in, 37, 38. 
Swainsonia, 176, 312. 
Sweet Peas, 169, 260. 
Swift, and his Headaches, 272. 
Symonds, John Addington, 323. 
Sympathy, poem on, 200. 

Table decoration, 96, 97, . 163, 
183, 397, 398. 

Tables for large or small dinner- 
parties, 281, 282. 

Tarragon, 151, 182. 

Tart, open apple, 185, 186. 

Taunus mountains, 72. 

Taxus fastigiata, 156. 

Taylor, Sir Henry, his views on 
marriage, 417; quoted, 444. 

Tea-drinking, 231, 232. 

Tea-leaves for sweeping carpets, 
202. 



Tea Roses, 'Ma Capucine,' 88, 
128; list of, 141, 215, 216. 

Tecophylaa cyano, 270. 

Teeth-cleaning of children, 248, 
249. 

Tennyson, Lord, lines on the 
test of love by, 423. 

Thompson, Mr. (of Ipswich), 
seeds sold by, 165, 166. 

Thome, Sir Richard Thome, on 
raw milk, 242 sqq. 

Thrushes, 22, 95. 

Tigridias, 31, 32, 176. 

Tiles, decorated, 286. 

Timbale Napolitaine, 398, 399. 

Tischbein, picture of Goethe by, 
78, 79. 

Tolstoi, his description of his 
mother's deathbed, 117. 

Tomatoes said to cause cancer, 
272; as an aperient, 273. 

Tosti, song by, 85. 

Tours, 121-124. [369. 

Traclielospermum jasminoides, 

Tradescantias, 172. 

Traditions of flowers, 309, 310. 

Trees in Ireland, 157, 158. 

Tricyrtis hirta, 25. 

Tropasolum speciosum, 59, 213. 

Tuberculosis, Association for the 
Prevention of, 82; its infec- 
tious character, 82-84; from 
raw milk, 241 sqq. 

Tubs for garden purposes, 282. 

Tulipa Greigi, 177. 

— Kaufmanniana, 177. 

Tulips, 48, 307-309. 

Turbot a la Portugaise, 270. 

Turkeys, cooking, 64, 152. 

Turner, J. M. W., sketches of 
the Rhine by, 84. 

Tussilago Coltsfoot, 259. 

Tussilago fragrans, 166, 181. 

Tyndall, Professor, on the infec- 
tiousness of consumption, 83. 

Utensils, cooking, 62. 

Vaccination, 83, 239. 
Vallota purpurea, 26. 



INDEX 



463 



Vancouveria hexandra, 177. 

Varnish for plaster casts, 280. 

Vegetable marrow, receipt for 
cooking, 42; soup, 150. 

Vegetarianism, 220 sqq. 

Verbenas, 174, 257, 307. 

Vere, Mr. Aubrey de (quoted), 
103. 

Villages, lake, curiosities from, 
378, 379. 

Villiers, Edward, love-letters, 
marriage, death, and charac- 
ter of, 107-116. ' 

Vilmorin, M., 393. 

Vine, claret-coloured, 30; phyl- 
loxera on, 393. 

Viola odorata, 262, 355. 

Violets, Neapolitan, 97; Czar, 
306, 355. 

Virginia Creeper, 370, 371. 

Volaille, to roast a, 152. 

Wallace, Dr., author of a book 

on lilies, 96. 
Wallflowers, 258, 310. 
Walls, garden, flower-boxes for, 

38. 
— whitewashed, 407, 408. 
Walther, Dr., 81. 
War, spirit of, 31. 



Ware, Messrs., catalogue of, 

264. 
Water-mills, 291. 
Watercress, cultivation of, 58, 

182, 288. 
Watering of gardens, 38, 39. 
Watson, Mr. William (quoted), 

21, 343. 
Watsonia marginata, 176. 
Wedding presents, 144. 
Wellington, Duke of, portrait of, 
Wesley, John, 155. [137. 

Westminster Gazette, article on 

tulips in, 307, 308. 
Whitewash on walls, 407, 408. 
Willow, the, 158. 
Witloof , or Large Brussels Chic- 
ory, 137. 
Wollstonecraft, Mary, her letters 

to Imlay, 106. 
Women. See Marriage, Love, 

Girls, &c. 
Woodcocks, 98, 99. 
Wordsworth, poetry of, 112; 

quoted, 214. 

Yew, the, 156. 

Zauschneria Californica, 23. 
Zucche, 165, 333, 334. 



ELIZABETH AND HER 
GERMAN GARDEN 



BY 



The Author of "A Solitary Summer " 



12mo. Cloth. $1.75 



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homeliness and simplicity ; with a wise husband, three 
merry babies, a few friends, a gardener, an old Ger- 
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and a slight touch of cynicism. Such is Elizabeth. 

It is a charming book." 

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THE SOLITARY SUMMER 



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$12mo. Cloth. $1.50. 

"A continuation of that delightful chronicle of 

days spent in and about one of the most delightful 

gardens known to modern literature. The author's 

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. have a wonderful freshness and charm." 

— Washington Post. 

Perhaps even more charming than the fascinat- 
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It is the kind of book in which one likes to dip 
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JESS 

BITS OF WAYSIDE GOSPEL 



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There is narrative enough in it to justify the characteriza- 
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gathered by one who traveled now on foot, now on horseback, 
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of rest, strength, mental quickening, spiritual poise and peace. 
Were it not for the unconventional handling, it might be char- 
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of religion. The lessons and inspirations of nature here found 
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or denominational issues. Jess, who gives the title roll to the 
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through many hundred miles of travel, much of it through the 
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country of the Mississippy valley. 

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revealed in nature, through science, human history, or the peren- 
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OCT 4 \w$ 



